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THE QUESTION 

OF 

ROMANISM 



HISTORIQAi;, REVIEW 

OF THE 

SYSTEM OF ROMANISM 

FROM ITS 

ORGANIZATION 

TO THE 

PRESENT 



BY 

JANE WOODWORTH BRUNER 



1908 
The Reform Press 

Los Angeles, California 



4-4 



PSRARY of OONGRE^I 
[woCootes Hecttiv<K! 

OCT 8 ; iy^« 



Copyright 1908 



Jane Woodworth Bruner 



PREFACE 

For fourteen years I have made a deep and far-reaching study 
of Romanism in all its religious, ethical, social and political rela- 
tions to the human family, and I have found its arrogant boast of 
being the oldest and only true church, as lacking in historical 
proof as its claim to Christianity. 

The present church or corporation of Rome is less than one 
thousand years old. It is pure despotism projected for the politi- 
cal conquest of the Western or European world and eventually the 
entire Earth, through its method of ''subjugation oj the intellecV^ 
of man, and forced ''unquestioning obedience.'' 

As our politicians are surrendering our most sacred institutions 
which are devoted to the mental, spiritual and physical develop- 
ment of the nation, to this corporation of foreigners who are not and 
never can become American citizens, their relation to the Republic 
should be thorough4y understood. 

The difficulty I encountered in getting authentic, modern his- 
tory ; the cringing fear expressed, when questioned, by those born into 
the Romish system but who have renounced it; proved the immedi- 
ate necessit}^ for a concise, reliable, and up-to-date history of 
Romanism. 

The Roman Hierarchy never enters into discussions, because 
it cannot, and its profound silence disarms even truth. Therefore, 
I challenge the world to disprove, historically, a single assertion in 
this work, which is not religious but a compilation of facts for think- 
ing minds to ponder. 

THE AUTHOR. 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

1. False Labels 9 

2. Who are Anarchists ? 20 

3. Peace ; 29 

4. The Holy Church of Rome, the Mother of Criminals 36 

5 . Is the Twentieth Century a Civilized Age ? 48 

6. The Roosevelt-Taft Administration 60 

7. The Roman Hierarchy 74 

8. The- College of Cardinals ., 85 

9. Congregation of the Holy Office and Universal Inquisition. 90 

10. Congregation of Indulgences and Sacred Relics. . ." 96 

11. Congregation of the Index 104 

12. Infallibility of the Pope 107 

13. Is the Papacy Divine by "God's Ordinance?" 116 

14. Modern Romanism 125 

15. Papal Conquest of the United States 133 

16. Italian Corporation of Rome 139 

17. History of the Jesuits 142 

18. What Every Priest Must Study 157 

19. Auricular Confession and Its Origin 172 

20. Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 187 

21. The Church of Rome the Enemy of Marriage, ergo, Civil- 

ization 217 

22. Divorce 235 

23. Public Schools, the Bulwark of the Nation 242 

Appendix. 

I. Substitution for Marriage , 251 

11. Report of the Taft Commission in the Philippine Islands. . 264 

III. The Assassination of President Lincoln by Romanists. . . . 294 



Chapter I, 



Fa I s e Labels 



While heroic efforts are being made to emancipate the human 
family from impure and spurious products which are being sold by 
get-rich-quick corporations, under enticing labels, assuring purity 
and healthfulness, let us tear the labels from some of the articles 
of mental and spiritual food marked 

''' Holy''— ''Sacred''— '' Religious;' 

with which the children of our civilized Republic are being poisoned. 
Let us draw the veil from the get-rich-easy corporations doing busi- 
ness in the name of religion, and compel them to file articles of in- 
corporation setting forth the object of their incorporation; their 
receipts and disbursements, with full lists of their members, pupils, 
finances, etc. Also, statements of the duties and remuneration of 
those who enter into active relationship with them, that their fol- 
lowers may have a glimpse at the forges where the links are welded 
to enslave their minds and reduce them to a chain-gang of illiterate 
laborers upon whom religious grafters feed and fatten. Then, such 
spectacular fakers, such astounding charletans as Dowie, will be an 
impossibility. 

Dowie studied theology and learned that the masters of the 
world were those who played with the mysteries of life and death. 
Being an unprincipled actor, he chose an original role in opening a 
get-rich-easy partnership with God, and within a few years became 
a wealthy voluptuary, beyond the possibilities of ''Solomon in all 
his glory." 



10 The Question of Romanism 

The public and the press treated this audacious charletan as an 
interesting comedy. Had he stolen a watch from a millionaire to 
get bread for starving children, instead of millions, in the name of 
God, from confiding creatures whose brains had been hermetically 
sealed in infancy, by pagan doctrines of men-gods, he would have 
done time, — long time — , in prison. But his criminal business was 
labeled religion, which, according to custom licensed him to secret 
crimes and placed him above the law\ 

Dowie was a self-centered criminal, with limitations, but there 
are organized religious criminals penetrating the very heart of every 
ethical, financial and political center of our great nation, without 
limitations. 

During March, 1894, I went to the Jesuit college in San Fran- 
cisco, to get a catalogue for a friend, who had written me with a view 
to sending her son there. 

While talking to the priest who received me, a young lady came 
to the open door of the reception room, and excusing himself, the 
priest held a few moments' conversation with her, soto voce, during 
which he handed her some money and she left the building. As if 
in explanation of the passing of the money, he said: 

'^That young lady is going to the other side of the city on some 
business for me." 

I was naturally surprised that a society young lady should be 
doing errands for a Jesuit priest, but I afterward learned that devout 
Roman Catholic women of every parish, are working allies of the 
priests, possibly, not always aware of the value of their services. 

''Father, have you read the morning telegrams, of the ex- 
pulsion of your order from Mexico?" I asked as I was about to take 
my leave. 

"Yes," he answered, looking sternly at the floor. 

"Are you not afraid that the time will come when you will meet 
the same fate in the United States?" I ventured. 

"Yes, we expect it," he answered, "but when that time comes, 
we expect to control the government." 

"I can't believe that time will ever come," I answered. 

He gave a sharp, quisical glance and asked: "Is France a 
Republic?".! 

"So-called — ," I answered. 

"So-called — , he echoed, "but we control the government." 



False Labels ' 11 

The words of the Jesuit sank deep in my patriotic soul, and I 
determined to learn more of these men, who had renounced all 
natural laws to live unnatural lives. As I passed the cathedral which 
adjoined the college — the door being open, I entered. The intens3 
stillness within the great pile of masonry and the mellow lights from 
the stained glass windows added to the awe-inspiring pictures on the 
walls, of the agonies of the cross; the altar with its crosses; glittering 
candelabra, images and gew-gaws used as a means of approach and 
commvmion with the Great Creator of this wonderful world, and the 
infinitude of worlds about us, filled me with a sense of shame at the 
gross sacrilege; the pagan dumbness — ; the spiritual blindness of the 
masses in this age called Christian Civilization, who, through priest- 
craft, are spiritually in the childish imbecility of nursing rag dolls. 
And to this low level of mentality, the Jesuit boasted they would 
reduce the United States! 

Over the confession boxes were the names of those who officiated 
in them. One was Irish, and the rest were all Italian. For in- 
stance — Father Martini — which in plain English is Father Martin. 
Who is Father Martini* The family origin, the real name of these 
men of mystery are not known out of their close corporation. They 
are masqueraders iiLTeligious garbs, who enter nations with panther- 
like silence, bent upon the destruction of everything which does not 
yield to their own system of debasement, enslavement and greed. 
Although this order is only three hundred and sixty-eight years old, 
it has been driven from the various countries of the world eighty-one 
times for treasonl The United States being the only exception. 

"We expect to control the government," said the wily Jesuit, 
and I thought that the news of the morning, with regard to the ex- 
pulsion of his order, for the fourth time from Mexico, had thrown 
him off his guard, but I learned that the conquest of the United 
States was an open boast from their altars, and through the Romish 
press; that Archbishop Ireland had stated before the consistory at 
Rome, in 1891: 

"We can have the United States in ten years. I give you three 
pointers; the Indians, the colored race and the public schools." 

The Indian question was considered settled when Congress 
passed a law declaring that no government money should be appro- 
priated for sectarian purposes. The withdrawal of the nation's 
miUions for the support of Jesuit Indian schools, 'gave the govern- 
ment the opportunity of making them citizens of a Republic, instead 

I 



12 The Question of Romanism 

of foreign subjects of an Italian pope, but the Jesuits have found a 
friend in Mr. Roosevelt in evading the laws of Congress. 

The large sums of money accumulated by treaty, for the lands 
that belonged to the Indians, is held by the government and the 
interest thereon is or should be, distributed equally yearly or semi 
annually, to all the Indians interested in that fund, yet Mr. Roosevelt, 
through his unquestioned power as President of the United States, 
withdrew $100,000 of that community money for the "Roman 
Catholic Indians,^' in utter disregard to the Indians of the Govern- 
ment. 

The colored people are an emotional race, too fond of taking 
active part in their religious devotions, to be deeply appealed to, 
through silent worship and mumbling of Latin masses. But our 
diylomatic statesmen have so little moral responsibility with regard 
to the children of the nation, that the Italian Jesuits haA^e Irish 
Jesuits working among the colored people, with this result; after 
thirty years of political agitation; the sacrifice of over a million lives 
and millions of dollars, to free the negroes from bondage; they are 
enticed into the Roman Church, and through saintly promises, en- 
veigled as life slaves into their "religious corporations.^' No slave 
in the South ever worked as hard as the lay-brothers and lay- 
sisters, in the cellars of these ''holy" corporations. 

The Rev. J. B. Slattery, Founder and Superior Emeritus of the 
St. Joseph's Society for Negro Missions in Baltimore, contributed an 
article to the Independent Magazine of September, 1906, entitled: 
''How My Priesthood Dropped from Me." He says, in part: 

"My work among the negroes may be termed the sloughing off. 
I can say that I know the negro Missions. If anything in this world 
is certain, it is that the stand of the Catholic church toward the 
negroes is sheer dishonesty. The negroes have suffered at her hands. 
In the white heat of the abolition movement, Kendrick, Primate of 
the church, justified slavery in his 'theology.' Just before the civil 
war the Jesuits sold their Catholic slaves to a Protestant, once gov- 
ernor of Louisiana. The unfortunate wretches, so I was assured in 
Louisiana, were seventeen j^ears without mass." 

The conflict for sixty years over the public school question, has 
been practically settled by the highest, best and cultured Romanists, 
who know as little about the under-current of Jesuit machinations, 
as Protestants. They repudiate parochial schools. 

The rapid changes of this kaleidoscope age have made these 
questions past history, and the resourceful Jesuits are now using all 
I 



False Labels 13 

their strength toward centraUzation of government power. With city 
charters which place all departments of municipal government ab- 
solutely in the hands of the mayor, who becomes supreme dictator; 
and the mayor, a puppet of their moulding, they come very near own- 
ing the cities, as was fully demonstrated in San Francisco. 

The centralization of State governments at Washington, which 
would speedily lead to imperialism, was exactly what they tried in 
Mexico after the Republic was declared, and it resulted in the se- 
' cession of Yucatan and Texas; war with the United States and the 
loss, to Mexico, of Texas. 

7^ ^ >fi ^ >^ >iC 

Shortly after my visit to the Jesuit college, I entered upon civic 
federation work, and as chairman of the visiting committee, had free 
access to all classes of public institutions, including prisons. 

I had been reared among broad and liberal Protestant environ- 
ments where the word '^ religion" means worship, according to the 
mental unfoldment of the individual, accompanied by an honorable 
and upright life. Methodism, Presbyterianism ; Baptists and Ro- 
manists merely implied different ways of obtaining the same result, 
and I could scarcely believe the facts when the role of faith was called 
and almost every outcast and criminal who came under the ban of the 
law, was a Romanist. 

The police who brought the unfortunate vagrant women into 
prison and helped to release them or get light sentences, were of the 
same faith, and the unspeakable creatures who own these white slaves 
of this free Republic, and live off their earnings are all Romanists, as 
are also ninety-nine per cent of the hoodlums and drunkards. 

I found that reform consisted principally, in building more in- 
stitutions with improved sanitation and better care of criminals, until 
the man in the poor house gets healthier food and is freer from disease 
than the millionaire, and the most vicious, irresponsible criminals 
are being so w^ell cared for at the expense of conscientious tax-payers 
and honest laborers, who must provide for them or be crushed by 
them, that their ''time" in prison, under healthful restraint, serves 
as a retreat to a sanatorium and they return to the world invigorated, 
to continue in vice and propogate their kind; while honest laborers 
die prematurely for lack of the care and rest which they provide for 
criminals. 

Twenty per cent, of the human family slave to support the other 
eighty, and they might as well attempt to bail out an inundation 



14 The Question of Romanism 

from the ocean with buckets, as to face the future with reformatories 
without striking at the root of degeneracy — perverted teachings in 
the name of religion — which make every degree of crime a purchasable 
commodity, the same as a suit of clothes or a pair of shoes, through 
a process of brokerage between a Corporation of priests and God, 
which robs undeveloped, impressionable minds of all moral respon- 
sibility. The Pope's indulgences are as freely sold to-day as they 
were before the Reformation, and sins told in the confessional under 
full faith that the priest and his blessed scapulars and absolutions 
have the power to absolve them, become to the minds of criminals 
things of the past that have been done and paid for. It is a searing 
process which closes the moral wound without healing and removes 
all moral responsibility. The proof of this statement is recorded in 
every country under the sun, by the enormous percentage of Romish 
criminals. 

Perverted religions, through ages of usage and priestly dictator- 
ship, have become sacred, and every thing appertaining to them is 
shrouded in mysterious holiness, no matter what their origin, cere- 
monies or creeds. What is this hydra-headed monster labeled relig- 
ion that robs men of reason and sound judgment; that pits husband 
against wife; that takes the child from the parents' arms and im- 
mures it for life, away from God's sunshine and every tender, beau- 
tiful thing in life; that drenches the earth with the blood of the 
innocents — ? Why must it be treated with so much secrecy, exclus- 
iveness and reverence, when religion has been the passport for the 
unlicensed freedom of the master criminals of the world? 

The word religion is the offspring of ecclesiasticism; conceived 
in the dark ages from the trinity of power, greed and lust. The 
origin of the word is from the Latin ligo, to bind; religo, to rebind or 
bind again and the noun religio, translated religion, which stands for 
spiritual bondage. Its assets are heaven, hell, purgatory and a hope- 
less place for unbaptized infants. It tells what it does not know; 
it sells what it has not got; its traffic is in immortal spirits that be- 
long to God. Free-thinking Protestants have dropped these chains, 
link by link, although from the dawn of history, this trafficing in the 
impossible has governed the world. 

The natural enemy of life is death and the Brahmin priests, over 
six thousand years ago, knowing that the fear of death made all men 
cowards, established this traffic in souls. The high priests, being 
with the scribes, the only ones who could read and write, arrogated 



False Labels 15 

to themselves in the name of reUgion, special divine light, power 
and gifts from the great Cm or God, by which they held absolute 
control over the keys of heaven and hell and the doom of every de- 
parting spirit. They became oracles of wisdom by guarding all 
avenues of learning from their followers, which did not come through 
them, and gave little knowledge from their Bible, the Vedas, until 
they established a caste of men-gods over ignorant, superstitious, slave 
people, so strong that it has survived as a conquest of the human 
race, and pervades every religion on the face of the earth today. 
It created the mediator — the priest, between man and God; the bar- 
terer and bargainer of spirit, which is to man what the light is to the 
candle, the incomprehensible, intangible breath of the infinite. 

The United States is a Protestant country and must be governed 
as such. Religious corporations can be shown no favoritism when 
they violate the laws. Protestant, or heretic, is the name given to 
all who protested against the cruelties, abuses and paganisms of 
the church of Rome which culminated in the Reformation in the 
sixteenth century. It includes every human being who disagrees 
with a single doctrine, creed or ceremony of the Romish church, and 
comprises one hundred and forty-three different religious denom- 
inations, including Jews, who are worshiping with absolute religious 
freedom, in respectful observance of the laws of the nation, which 
guarantee ' 'liberty of speech and freedom of conscience." 

Arrayed against this formidable force of advanced thinkers, in 
the ratio of almost seven Protestants, to every Romanist, stands the 
church of Rome — alone — arrogant, despotic, aggressive and re- 
bellious against every law and every step of human progress; every 
physical, mental and spiritual liberty of its followers. The church 
or '' Corporation of Rome" claims to have cornered heaven and hell 
and holds the only keys, which is of such vast importance to those 
who chance to be w^ithout its portals, that they claim the right to 
challenge its title. 

When religion of any kind rears its head in political or civil 
affairs, it must be suppressed for the future safety of the nation. 
The great mind of the free-thinker has as much right to act and have 
his principles incorporated in the Constitution and laws as the 
Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian or Romanist. This is not a nation 
of creed or sect. It is not a Christian nor infidel nation. It is a Pro- 
TESTant Nation against ignorance, superstition and enslaving 
creeds, and the religion which seeks to place its indelible stamp upon 



16 The Question of Romanism 

our institutions in any way, shape or form, is a parasite and usurper. 

What would Americans say if the Epworth Leaguers and 
Christian Endeavorers decided to go into ''rehgious confra- 
ternities;" take vows of mendicancy and poverty; abandon 
all the natural and useful duties of life and demand that the world 
at large should support them as professional beggars, which is the 
meaning of '^ mendicants." How would they receive the announce- 
ment that the Latter Day Saints had canonized Brigham Young and 
founded an order of St. Brigham, and demanded appropriations from 
Congress and State Legislatures? It would be regarded as a huge 
joke, yet it would be as just to the tax-payers, as the appropriations 
of millions yearly to the orders of St. Benedict, the Italian mendi- 
cant; St. Francis, the French mendicant; St. Patrick and the Brothers 
of Jesus and Sisters of Mary, from Ireland, Italy, France, Spain, 
Mexico and Guatemala. 

When President Roosevelt declared himself in thundering 
tones against the Corporations and Trusts which have unchained 
the hidden treasures of earth and air, and given to the world luxu- 
rious commodities within the reach of the poorest laborer — of which 
no king could dream fifty years ago. Why did he not add to his 
'' smashing" list, the foreign ''Corporation of Rome?" 

The Standard Oil Company, which astonishes and frightens 
thinking minds, is a babe in swadling clothes in comparison to this 
close corporation of souls. The tax of the Standard Oil, whatever 
its transgressions, is for valuable products delivered and is in ratio 
as the dew from heaven to the mighty ocean, in comparison with the 
ceaseless tax of the Corporation of Rome upon millions of human 
beings — unborn — born — and dead, for which it promises the im- 
possible and delivers nothing. 

Leaders of political crises, like masters of finance, are born 
geniuses, not only with masterful, suggestive intellects, but the moral 
courage to grasp situations, as the artist discerns the chiaro obscura in 
a labyrinth of foliage, while to the dull, unsuggestive mind it has no 
meaning. 

J. D. Rockefeller is a vehicle of evolution, and no more respon- 
sible for his inordinate mastery over material things than Pader- 
ewski, in his witchery with the piano ; or Edison, when he penetrates 
the infinite of space; grasps the lightning from the hand of the All- 
Supreme and awakens sordid minds to higher conceptions of their 
Infinite Master. 



False Labels 17 

Four hundred years ago when the church, or Corporation of 
Rome, was all-powerful in the European world, Mr. Rockefeller w^ould 
have been put through the ^'Holy Office" of the ''Holy Inquisition" 
and possibly burned alive on a day made "sacred" for that festive 
occasion, and the ''Holy Church" wouJd have confiscated his unholy 
wealth. 

As there were no insane asylums at that period, Paderewski 
would have been sent to some monastery attached to a cathedral 
where he would have been a miracle worker behind the scenes for 
Cecilia and other saints. As for Edison — Lourdes would not even 
be a side show, in the great Corporation's theatrical circuit, if the 
"Holy Inquisitors" could have put the "holy" screws of the "Holy 
Office" upon his marvelous brains and used them for ancient miracle 
working. Every scientific discovery; every inspiration; every 
thought that dared to rise above the mental denseness of the human 
perverts who played God, was speedily extinguished, as inspired by 
the devil. 

The liberal laws of the United States make them an inviting 
field for religious fanatics and imposters. They are broad, humane 
laws of liberty-loving men who suffered through religious oppression 
and fled from Europe to escape persecution and death by the "Holy 
Inquisition" which was imprisoning, torturing and burning every 
human being who dared to express an original thought. 

The heroes who fled from persecution across the ocean in frail 
boats, to face the hardships of the wilderness and the dangers of 
savage tribes of Indians, made far-reaching laws for the security and 
advancement of the human family through freedom of thought and 
liberty of conscience, but men who rode in poste-chases or drove 
oxen and whose sweethearts rode on cows ; whose business methods 
were the primitive barter and exchange, could not be expected to 
make laws as far-reaching as our modern Croesus; — the Standard Oil 
Compan}^; wireless telegraphy; electric motors, and the marvelous 
developments, upon whose threshold we are standing. But they 
blazed the w^ay through the wilderness which led to liberty of speech 
and expression of conscience, and gave to the world the mental vigor 
to master science and unveil the mysteries of the Universe. They 
rekindled the light which the great Creator had placed in every mind 
as a guide toward the inevitable goal of his soul, which had been 
dimmed or extinguished by priestcraft. They broke the chains of 
sacerdotalism, but our eminent statesmen of the present are so 



18 The Question of Romanism 

carefully welding the pieces, it will not be their fault if they are not 
made as good as new. 

It is only one hundred and thirty years since the thirteen colo- 
nies declared their independence, yet the world, scientifically, in- 
tellectually and financially has made greater strides during that 
period than in all its previous known history. It is difficult for the 
present generation to realize the barbarous customs from which 
society has evolved within the past sixty-five years; since telegraphy 
was perfected and steam became a commodity; that cooking stoves 
are less than one hundred years old; that our ancestors used braziers 
and cranes over open fires, like all savages. That they rose by the 
light of a tallow dip, and went to bed by the light of a log fire to save 
the tallow dip; that families had to mould their candles as regularly 
as they made their bread; that the ancient Romans — the idols of 
hero worshipers — burned tapers in oil, like the Esquimaux; sat on the 
floor or reclined on couches; ate with their fingers or chop sticks; 
went bareheaded and barefooted or in sandals. 

The scientific miracles of the present age, in comparison with 
which the dumb little doings of unlettered men — labeled, "Miracles 
of Saints^' — merely demonstrate the animal materialism, lack of 
mental development and pagan origin of our ancestors and their 
barbaric conception of a Supreme Presence. They have unfolded 
the minds of men upon a higher spiritual plane than the adoration 
of wooden images and a money value for spiritual favors. 

The man who opens the throttle of a great, breathing, panting 
machine; who touches the telegraph and awakens the responsive 
lightning thousands of miles away; who wafts a message into the 
sky, where it is taken up by a responsive, awaiting current and in- 
telligently transmitted, cannot go back, physicall3^ mentally or 
spiritually and sit upon a dromedary or ass, while he consults that 
part of a priest's brain which he proudly boasts is a thousand years 
old. Cardinal Gibbons says: ''The Church has not changed in a 
thousand years; she cannot change, she is infallible." 

There is no such thing as inaction. The instant that a thing 
ceases to change, it begins to die, and the transition — called death — is 
always birth into new conditions. If the Supreme Master, whom 
these puny creatures blaspheme with their teachings of unchanging 
infallibility, were to stop the perpetual change of the universe, for 
an infinitesimal fraction of time, chaos would follow, and on the 
same principle the mind that is trained backward a thousand years, 



False Labels 19 

is in every sense a stranger to the present. Religious fanatics are 
spiritual dwarfs who cannot conceive of mental unfoldment in ratio 
with physical development, and whose material doctrines do not 
recognize the fact that mental growth is spiritual growth, and the 
spirit of man rises like vapor toward the infinite, of whom it is the 
invisible, incomprehensible ''likeness of God, Himself." 

There never was a period in the history of the United States 
which called for greater statesmanship and truer patriotism than 
the present. The very air is as laden with poison for the future of the 
Republic as the fangs of a serpent. 

Statesmanship is passing to give place to diplomatic imperialism, 
and weak diplomacy is too often mistaken for statesmanship. We 
have able statesmen, but few of the country's ablest men are before 
the public. In this age of graft, a seat in Congress — even the Presi- 
dential chair — , is a matter of price. Ignorant, incompetent drunk- 
ards have bought their way to Congress by paying the press of the 
country to boom them, and they bought the brains that wrote their 
speeches, while they debauched the nation's honor. The}^ flaunted 
their wealth until the intellectual, modest, scholarly statesmen shun 
contact with this brazen affrontery, which they cannot and will not 
imitate. When patriotic Americans, who are not acceptable to the 
clerical party — the Jesuits — aspire to office, there is no limit to the 
slanders and persecutions to which they are subjected, and the un- 
thinking public, who leave their bodily welfare to a doctor, their 
spiritual unfoldment to a priest, and their financial matters to a 
lawyer, hand over their civic responsibilities to the political grafter 
whom their leader dictates. 



Chapter II. 



If^ho are Anarchistsf What Constitutes 
Anarchy? 



This subject has been glaringly thrust before the world through 
the recent assassination, in Denver, of Father Heinrichs, by Guisseppe 
Alio, which like all murders and assassinations was a shocking tragedy. 

The Romish priests, from their altars, and through their own 
papers as well as the public press of the country, ''sounded a warning 
against anarchists and anti-clerical propaganda" as bitter and mur- 
derous as the priestly Jew-haters in Russia. There was an effort to 
suppress all foreign papers that were not edited by the clergy: 
Municipal and federal officers were sent with "drag-nets" to arrest 
all anarchists and suspects. The police of the large cities were called 
from duty to escort the hysterical priests to their altars and guard 
them there. 

"I am positive," said the chancellor of the Chicago archdiocese, 
"that these anarchists, anti-clericals or whatever else they may call 
themselves, have prepared lists of priests and clergy whom they wish 
to suffer the fate of the priest of Denver." 

The chancellor's assertion is misleading. Anti-clerics and an- 
archists are as far apart as the North and South poles. 

Anarchists are rebels against all laws governing civilization. 
"They have no oath, because they do not believe in a god who creates 
human beings to damn or burn them according to his mood. They 
believe in a great scientific cause of existence, which unfolds by 
evolution; that all laws having been made by reUgious fanatics, are 
opposed to common sense and the laws of nature and not only retard 
human progress but hold it in savage disregard of the comfort and 



Who are Anarchists? 21 

possible progress of the many. They do not beheve that any man 
or set of men no matter how they may label themselves, know any 
more about the future or the mysteries of the universe than they do. 
They believe that men, who in their business of religion sell seats in 
heaven and buy 'poor souls' from purgatory and hell, are as great 
criminals as other men who sell what they have not." 

Anti-clerics are the higher, intelligent Romanists of every coun- 
try who are demanding that their clergy marry and live as Protest- 
ant ministers; that they be compelled to respect the laws of their 
country as other men, and cease to be exempt from all duties human 
and divine; that the present farce of celibacy, by which thousand? of 
idle, dissipated men mingle in close relations with their wives and 
daughters, is the source of the social degradation of every Romish 
country. 

Anti-clerics stand for reform in the Roman church and intelli- 
gent progress with the spirit of the age, which is cursed by the Pope 
as "modernism," of which he is deathly afraid, because it prompts 
men to think for themselves. 

Leo Heinrichs was labeled "priest" and Alio "anarchist," and 
the world, as it has been trained, judged them by their labels; just 
as they would a turtle dove and a rattlesnake. The "father" was 
laid in state as a martyr, in two cities and the anarchist was hanged 
— mysteriously — at night. Yet these men were products of the same 
system — both reared Romanists — in fact, of all the many assassina- 
tions and assaults upon priests, there has never been one by a Protest- 
ant. 

Anarchism is the natural" antithesis of religious fanaticism. The 
priest who cries "kill anarchists," is as much an anarchist as the man 
who cries "kill priests." The priest who, in this enlightened age, 
tormented his body with pointed chains to appease an angry God, 
is as much a mediaeval freak, and quite as irresponsible as the man 
who felt it his duty to rid the world of him. Alio, the anarchist, 
rebelled against all law, while the priest was a slave of law and dis- 
cipline, who would tighten the chains on his puny body if he dared 
to have an original thought. 

According to newspaper reports, Leo Heinrichs left Germany, 
his native country, to escape the duty imposed upon all law abiding 
citizens; service in the army. A rebel from Germany, he came to 
the United States to become a rebel against all social and divine laws 
by becoming a Franciscan friar. When he became a priest, he took 



22 The Question of Romanism 

the following oath, by which he became an anarchist in every 
Protestant country and the aggressive, sworn enemy of all Protestants. 

A PriesVs Oath: 

*'I, Leo Heinrichs, now in the presence of Almighty God, the 
blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed Michael, the arch-angel, the blessed 
St. John, the Baptist, the Holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and 
all the Saints and the Sacred Host of Heaven, and to you my lord^ 
I declare from my heart, without mental reservation that the pope is 
Christ's vicar-general and is the true and only head of the Universal 
church throughout the earth, and that, by virtue of the keys of 
binding and loosing given to his Holiness by Jesus Christ, He' has 
power to depose Heretical Kings, Princes, States, commonwealths 
and governments, all being illegal without his sacred confirmation, 
and that they may safely be destroyed. Therefore, to the utmost of 
my power, 1 will defend the doctrine and his holiness' rights and 
customs against all usurpers of the Protestant authority whatsoever, 
against the now pretended authority and church of England and all 
adherents, in regard that they may be usurpal and heretical, oppos- 
ing the Sacred Mother, the church of Rome. 

''I do denounce and disown any allegiance as due to any Protest- 
ant king, prince or state or obedience to any of their inferior officers 
I do further declare the doctrine of the church of England, of the 
Calvinists, Huguenots and other Protestants, to be damnable and 
those to be damned who will not forsake them. 

''I do further declare that I will help, assist and advise all or 
any of his Holiness' agents, in any place wherever I shall be, and do 
my utmost to extirpate the Protestant doctrine and to destroy all 
their pretended power regal or otherwise. I do further promise and 
declare that, notwithstanding that I may be permitted by dispensa- 
tion to assume any heretical religion for- the propogation of the Mother 
Church's interest, to keep secret and private all her agents' councils 
as they entrust me, and not to divulge, directly or indirectly, by word, 
writing or circumstance whatsoever, but to execute all that shall 
be proposed, given in charge or discovered unto me by you, my 
most reverend Lord and Bishop. 

"All of which I, Leo Heinrichs, do swear by the blessed trinity 
and blessed sacrament which I am about to receive, to perform on 
my part to keep inviolably, and to call on the Heavenly and Glorious 
Host of Heaven to witness my real intentions to keep this my oath. 

''In testimony thereof, I take this most holy and blessed sacra- 
ment of the Eucharist, and witness the same further with my con- 
secrated hand, in the presence of my Holy Bishop and all the priests 
who assist in my ordination to the priesthood." 

The life work of this man Heinrichs was to fight Protestants in 
their own country; to chsrupt their government and teach religious. 



Who are Anarchists? 23 

hatred, under holy names and in religious garbs. While the slave 
of this oath, for the breaking of which he merited death, he undoub- 
tedly took, as all foreign priests do, active part in the politics of our 
nation; even going to the polls which, according to his oath to the 
pope was not only high treason to him, but to the Republic of the 
United States. 

This oath, which is taken by all priests, is added to with more 
servile and binding force, as the priest becomes bishop and cardinal. 

The- priests in the United States are almost all Jesuits, and every 
Jesuit takes the following oath: 

Oath of the Jesuits or Society of Jesus. 

"1, , now in the presence of Almighty God, the 

blessed Virgin Mary, the blessed Michael the archangel, the blessed 
St. John the Baptist, the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and 
the saints and sacred hosts of heaven and to you^ my ghostly father, 
the superior general of the Society of Jesus, founded by St. Ignatius 
Loyola, in the pontification of Paul the Third, and continued to the 
present, do, by the womb of the Virgin, the matrix of God, and the 
rod of Jesus Christ, declare and swear that his holiness the Pope is 
Christ's vicegerent, and is the true and only head of the Catholic or 
Universal church throughout the earth, and by virtue of the keys of 
binding and loosing given to his hoUness by my Saviour Jesus 
Christ, he hath powder to depose heretical kings, princes, states, com- 
monwealth and governments, all being illegal without his sacred con- 
firmation, and they may be safely destroyed. Therefore, to the ut- 
most of my power I will defend this doctrine and his Holiness' right 
and custom against all usurpers of the heretical or Protestant au- 
thority whatsoever, especially the J^utheran Church of Germany, 
Holland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and the now pretended 
authorities of England and Scotland, and branches of the same now 
established in Ireland and on the continent of America and elsewhere 
and all adherents, in regard that they be usurpal and heretical, op- 
posing the sacred mother church of Rome. 

"I do now denounce and disowm any allegiance as due to any 
heretical king, prince or state named Protestant or liberal, or obe- 
dience to any of their laws, magistrates or officers. 

''I do further declare that the doctrines of the churches of Eng- 
land and Scotland, of the Calvinists, Huguenots and others of the 
name of Protestant or liberals, to be damnable, and they themselves 
to be damned who will not forsake the same. 

''I do further declare that I will help, assist and advise all or 
any of his Holiness' agents in any place wherever I shall be — in 
Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Eng- 
land, Ireland or America, or any other kingdom or territory I shall 



24 The Question of Romanism 

come to, and do my utmost to extirpate the heretical Protestant or 
liberal doctrines and to destroy all their pretended powers, regal or 
otherwise. 

'^I do further promise and declare that notwithstanding that I 
am dispensed with, to assume any rehgion heretical for the propa- 
gation of the mother church's interests, to keep secret and private 
all her agents' councils from time to time as they entrust me, and not 
to divulge directly or indirectly by word, writing or circumstances 
whatever, but to execute all that shall be proposed, given in charge 
or discovered unto me by you my ghostly father, or any of this 
sacred convent. 

^'I do further promise and declare that I will have no opinion 
or will of my own or any mental reservation whatsoever, even as a 
corpse or cadaver (perinde ac cadaver), but will unhesitatingly 
obey each and every command that I may receive from my superiors 
in the militia of the Pope and of Jesus Christ. 

''That I will go to any part of the world whithersoever I may be 
sent, to the frozen regions of the north, the burning sands of the 
desert of Africa, or the jungles of India, to the centers of civilization 
of Europe, or to the wild haunts of the barbarous savages of America 
without murmuring or repining, and will be submissive in all things 
whatsoever communicated to me. 

''I do furthermore promise and declare that I will, when opportu- 
nity presents make and wage relentless war, secretly or openly against 
all heretics, Protestants or Liberals as I am directed to do to extir- 
pate them from the face of the earth, and that I will spare neither 
age, sex or condition, and that I will hang, burn, waste, boil, flay, 
strangle and bury alive these infamous heretics, rip up the stomachs 
and wombs of their women and crush their infants' heads against the 
walls in order to annihilate their execrable race. That when the 
same cannot be done openly, I will secretly use the poisonous cup, 
the strangulating cord, the steel of the poinard or the leaden bullet, 
regardless of the honor, rank, dignity or authority of the person or 
persons, whatever may be their condition in life, either public or 
private, as I at any time may be directed to do by any agent of the 
Pope or superior of the brotherhood of the holy father, of the Society 
of Jesus. 

''In Confirmation of which I hereby dedicate my life, my soul 
and all corporal powers, and with this dagger which I now receive, 
I will subscribe my name, written in my blood, in testimony thereof; 
and should I prove false or weaken in my determination, may my 
brethren and fellow soldiers of the militia of the Pope cut off my 
hands and my feet and my throat from ear to ear, my bell}' opened 
and sulphur burned therein, with all the punishment that can be 
inflicted upon me on earth and my soul be tortured by demons in an 
eternal hell forever. 



What Constitutes Anarchy? 25 

"All of which I, , do swear by the blessed 

Trinity, and blessed sacrament which I am now to receive, to perform 
and on my part to keep inviolably; and do call all the heavenly and 
glorious host of heaven to witness these my real intentions to keep 
this my oath. 

"In testimony hereof, I take this most holy and blessed sacra- 
ment of the eucharist, and witness the same further, with my name 
written with the point of this dagger, dipped in my own blood, and 
seal in the face of this holy covenant." 

" ^He receives the wafer from the superior and writes his name 
wdth the point of the dagger, dipped in his own blood taken from 
over his heart)." * :^ * :¥ ^^ 

If American citizens believe that Gompers, as an individual, is 
trying to disrupt the Judiciary of the United States for the benefit of 
the working classes, let them reflect upon the following, published 
by Rev. J. G- White, Stanford, Illinois, September 10, 1895, which 
fits the present remarkably well: 

"A fearful crisis is forced upon this nation, and millions are not 
apprised of the fact, otherwise are indifferent to results. 

"The Pope, the Jesuits and the Roman clergy are plotting the 
destruction of our free institutions, civil and religious, in the near 
future. A national conspiracy exists of which I have positive evi- 
dence, which challenges investigation. The upheavals of 1894 were 
not "labor strikes" as many supposed, but were intended to culmi- 
nate in a national revolution which would disrupt the government 
'bury the President and Congress beneath the rubbish' and 'roll a 
tidal wave of fire and blood from sea to sea.' It was predicted that 
'500,000 skilled mechanics would tear up the rails, destroy the bridges, 
burn the cars, and the United States army and militia could not be 
concentrated,' etc. This plot was projected when T. V. Powderly 
was master workman of the (so-called) Knights of Labor; he also 
had the endorsement of ten archbishops, sixty bishops. Cardinal 
Gibbons and Pope Leo XIII. And Gibbons is hereby defiantly 
challenged to disprove these factsl Gibbons dare not deny the fact that, 
after he obtained the sanction of the aforesaid archbishops and bis- 
hops, he went to the Pope of Rome in person and influenced him to 
revoke a former decision against Powderly's Romanized organization. 
And it is said that Powderly cheerfully promised to make the amen- 
dations required by the holy office, and expressed his readiness to 
comply at all times with the wishes of the ecclesiastical authorities.' 
These significant facts developed before the national upheaval de- 
veloped itself, and doubtless thousands of honest toilers were mis- 
led by Powderly's Jesuit hypocrisy, and narrowly escaped being led 
as lambs to the slaughter. Under these circumstances it may not 
have been difficult for Debs, a Romish infidel and drunkard, to 



26 The Question of Romanism 

affiliate in the treasonable conspiracy. In April, 1893, I detected 
and exposed the conspiracy, and Powderly resigned; but Sovereign 
took his place before the uprising commenced. Thanks to the Presi- 
dent of the United States, the judiciary and army for prompt and 
efficient action which for the present stamped out the vile Roman 
plot of treason. 

The End is Not Yet. 

"New alliances are being formed, new methods projected, re- 
served forces marched to the front, and the combined elements of 
national corruption confederated for demoralization and anarchy. 

''The first business is to capture the toilers and through them 
give semblance of respectability to the vilest clan of traitors and 
corruptionisits ever congregated or federated this side of perdition." 

Are our statesmen ignorant on this subject or treasonably silent; 
or so supremely selfish that even the future destinies of their children 
are obscured by their own over-shadowing greatness of the moment 
or— ARE THEY COWARDS? • 

When the United States marines were ordered from Kingston, 
after they had gone ashore and established temporary hospitals for 
the suffering from the earthquake — , how many read between the 
lines when the Press dispatch said: 

''As soon as the American marines had returned to their ships, 
the Jesuits who own the public park where the hospitals had been 
erected, took charge of the sick and wounded." The complacent 
Americans made no comment. 

\ i ■ |f|* ^ * . >!< * * 

Why should the government of the United States, federal and 
civil, as well as every industrial and commercial enterprise be taxed 
millions yearly, for the support of two hundred and one foreign 
corporations of monks, friars, brothers, nuns and sisters? 

Such a system is not recognized by the Constitution of any 
Republic, where no class of citizens is permitted to live off of the 
labors of others, without compensation. These so-called "religious 
orders" have been driven, time after time, from every Romish 
country as "undesirable citizens." They are impoverishing the 
United States as they have every other country under the sun, until 
they were disbanded by the outraged working class, who had become 
reduced to beggary themselves, through the heavy and incessant 
demands imposed by these irresponsible creatures who have repu- 
diated homes and every natural and civilized industry. 

Men and women who live in defiance of all natural, divine and 



What Constitutes Anarchy? 27 

social laws which lead to the higher life intellectually and morally, 
are abnormal creatures who must be correctly classified in this 
tw^entieth century. 

Men are criminals who never earn an honest dollar but play 
with millions wrung from credulous masses whom they spiritually 
enslave, by claiming the only keys to the locked portals of heaven, 
wherein they sell front seats to the ''princes of the church," who 
have fattened and grown great on the carcasses of the poor; reserved 
seats to every grade of criminals to every part of heaven if they have 
the price, w^hich generally comes high; but, for the honest laboring 
poor who have never known ordinary comforts or pleasures; who 
have given their half-starved bodies to those they loved and the 
church, there is not even standing room in heaven, and their children 
must buy them out of purgatory and hell; many on the installment 
plan. 

By a strange co-incidence, on the night of the day that Friar 
Heinrichs was killed, a drama of quite another import was enacted 
at Council. Bluffs, Iowa, which was given as follows by the Chicago 
Record- Herald.'. 

" Nun Flees uith Lover- and Marries in Haste.^^ 

''Sensational Elopement from St. Barnard's Convent at Council 
Bluffs stirs Catholic circles of Western Iowa." 

"COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA, Feb. 29.— Sister Geneva of the 
Sisters of Charity connected w^ith St. Barnard's convent and hospital 
in this city, has escaped from the institution and yesterday was 
married in Omaha to 0. R. Dye, of St. Joseph, Mo. She was form- 
erly Lizzie Welch of Chicago. The escapade has caused a great 
sensation in Catholic circles in Western Iowa, and all sorts of rumors 
are afloat. The convent authorities are maintaining strict secrecy. 

"Sister Geneva is only tw^entj'-six years old, although a nun of 
ten years' standing. Dye, while working at the institution, fell in 
love with her. It is said that he was discharged w^hen the mother 
superior discovered the love of the young people. 

"Arrangements had been made through friends for an elopement, 
and Thursday night, Dye was at the appointed place under the wall 
of the convent. When Sister Geneva threw a package of clothes 
from her window^ and then started down the stairs with her shoes 
in her hands, a window of the convent is said to have been thrown up 
and two shots fired at Dye. This the convent authorities deny, but 
Dye stoutly asserts it is true. 

"After a scuffle the sister escaped, while Dye was captured and 
held a prisoner several (hours. Sister Geneva made her way, in her 



28 The Question of Romanism 

bare feet, through the snow to the Kiel Hotel. Several hours later 
she was confronted by the convent authorities and exchanged for 
Dye who was given his liberty on the condition that the young nun 
return to the convent. But Dye was not idle long. Soon after day- 
light he obtained habeas corpus papers and returned to the convent 
with an officer and took Sister Geneva away. 

"The young people hurried over the river to Omaha, where they 
got a marriage license and were married by County Judge Leslie. 
Mother Vincent denies a portion of the story, saying that Sister 
Geneva was only a novice and was permitted to leave the convent 
whenever she chose. To this the young man makes denial and says 
she had been in the convent ten years, having entered when only 
sixteen." 

Because an Italian Romish anarchist killed a German Roman 
priest, neither of whom could be, from his avowed principles, an 
American citizen, the civil and federal governments were called into 
action, while in Council Bluffs the Constitution of the United States; 
the civil and federal laws were openly and flagranti}^ violated by a 
foreign corporation, similar to the one of which Heinrichs was a 
member, and even the facts were suppressed. 

Why did not the corporation ''smashing" President Roosevelt 
send out a ''drag net" to investigate the Corporation that can entice 
an American girl into its workhouse as a wageless slave, at the tender 
age of sixteen, and after ten years when she wishes to ESCAPE — 
not leave — to marry the man whom she has had the rare opportunity 
of meeting: He declares that he was tw^ice fired upon; then taken 
prisoner and held, as hostage, until the nun, whom the superior said 
"was permitted to leave when she chose — ," was exchanged for the 
prisoner. And all this — in the free United States, where "Slavery 
or voluntary servitude" is un-Constitutional. Yet, not one voice 
has been heard to ask if there are not in the thousands of sealed 
abodes of Roman masters, other slave women chaffing at the bars 
of their prisons. 



Chapter III. 



e a c e 



The second Peace Conference of the Great Powers, ended as 
serenely as an old woman's tea, while thundering artillery was pro- 
claiming a "religious'' war. 

After the first Peace Conference, in 1889, which was called by 
the Czar of Russia, the Pope of the Greek church, who plays God for 
the Greeks just as Joseph Sarto does for the Romanists; came the 
Russian-Japanese war. 

The great rulers of the world smiled at the temerity of the 
smallest military nation arrayed in battle against the greatest; while 
Romish priests prayed from their altars that the ''Great Christian 
Nation," Russia, their elder brother of the Greek church, might be 
victorious over the "Pagan Japanese.'' 

The entire sacred history of the world, from the first book in the 
Bible to the present day, is a demoniacal raving over holy and 
religious wars — savage horrors — , brought about by religious fanat- 
ics. If, occasionally, a lofty spirit rose to grasp the enslaved masses 
from these spiritual sharks, he was speedily put to death. 
Later, altars were built to his memory and he became a god. His 
teachings passed into fables which grew in importance with each 
succeeding generation, until they were handed down as sacred tra- 
ditions, and those who could not or would not accept them as in- 
spired revelations, were put to death. 

We are products of a savage past — a recent savage past — 
so recent, that we have not reached the pinfeather condition of 
the bird. We are nest-bound by ignorance, superstition and sacredo- 



30 The Question of Romanism 

talism, and in all the records of the savage, gory past, there is nothing 
to equal the horrors of the present Christian Civilization, as demon- 
strated by the Russian- Japanese war, where tens of thousands of 
men were shot down in columns, like mad dogs. 

Russians, for the insatiable greed of their master, whose hundreds 
of thousands of soldiers had long been creeping down upon the 
nations of the Orient, that had been conquered, silenced and sub- 
merged ages ago, by their popes and priests under the unchanging, 
infallible despotism of a process labeled religion. 

The nations of the globe have grown civilized, exactly in propor- 
tion as they have evolved away from this spiritual slavery, but the 
wars that label them still savage, all have their origin in the same 
poisonous teachings of religious fanatics, who breed race hatred. 

The Japanese learned their lesson of Christian invasion in the 
seventeenth century and they killed their teachers, the Jesuits. 
That experience taught them; if the Christian Russians invaded 
their country, there would be little hope of the survival of their 
nation. They made a careful study of the situation, which demon- 
strated that Russia was a nation of debauched, sacerdotal slaves, 
and they knew, from their own Oriental country, when priests re- 
duced men to cowards before their Maker, they robbed them of the 
courage to be men. 

When the great nations of the world attempted to interfere to 
save the poor little nation, the answer was: ''Let us alone. We 
want no help." 

The Japanese are a nation of patriots, and they knoAv that the 
fire of patriotism can never be kindled in the breast of a hired soldier 
who, like an assassin, kills because he is paid for it. 

Our military statesmen are trending toward great standing 
armies that rob the nation of its most perfect men, leaving the puny 
ones at home to propagate the race; that tax the nation into bank- 
ruptcy and reduce the people to the condition of slaves under an 
imperial master. 

Germany and England are veritable arsenals planted OA-er 
volcanos of starving, helpless humanity, and the time is not far dis- 
tant when they will be in the throes of anguish as deep and cruel as 
Russia, for want and hunger make savages of the gentlest and best. 

As the standing army of a nation increases, that nation declines 
in an exagerated proportion, and a nation that is kept under dis- 
cipline at the mouth of a cannon is neither free nor a Republic. The 



Peace 31 

great progress and prosperity of the United States is the outgrowth 
of that period of supreme peace, when the standing army numbered 
but 20,000 and every man was a patriot. 

Barracks hfe, Uke monastic Ufe, has a degenerating effect upon 
men. It is unnatural, and a servitude which develops cowards, 
criminals, or degenerates. 

Russia's vast army consisted of men degenerated through long 
barrack life; poorly paid, homeless, hopeless illiterates kept brutalized 
with vodki. These soldiers (?) followed their priests with their 
ikons — images — of the Virgin or saints, like dogs let loose from their 
master's leash, to kill Japanese — Pagan Japanese — w^hom it was 
their religious duty to kill. 

What of the Japanese? They had but a small standing army, 
but they were all patriots, whose country was in danger and every 
man in the Empire, like the heroes of the American Revolution, 
became a vigorous, brave, intelligent w^arrior. Economy was their 
only hope of success, and while the men eschewed all luxuries, such 
as wine and tobacco, and lived on rice and dried fish — , the women 
and children assumed the labors of the men, and the god of war could 
not see the wooden images of Russia, for the tears of sympathy over 
the holy sacrifice 'of human love in Japan. 

We sent missionaries to Japan for many years, to enlighten and 
Christianize them. We taught them commerce and science, and the}^ 
taught us art. We taught them freedom of speech and liberty of 
conscience and when they proved such apt scholars that they shat- 
tered that great bubble of imperialism, Russia, before which the world 
had trembled for centuries, they gave our statesmen a lesson which 
they failed to grasp. 

These brave little men, after their stupendous conquest, scattered 
abroad to make money with which to replace the depleted coffers of 
their beloved country . Naturally the United States free to every 
illiterate, drunken criminal who applies with a pass-port from the 
Pope's agents, the Jesuits, was looked upon as a safe harbor of in- 
dustry. They came and engaged in all kinds of useful pursuits and 
in proportion to their numbers have giveii the government little 
trouble or expense, but to their surprise, they find the country largely 
under control of their old enemies, the Jesuits, and the people so 
accustomed to illiterate immigrants that they refuse to accept in- 
telligent ones. 

It is not probable that in the history of the world such a comedy 



32 The Question of Romanism 

was ever seriously enacted as the ^'Japanese school question," in 
San Francisco. That city was not only in the throes of an over- 
whelming catastrophy, but its municipal affairs were absolutely in 
the hands of foreign Jesuits and their trained emissaries. 

Our statesmen took the matter seriously and threw the entire 
nation into excitement over war with Japan, while the whole episode 
was a Jesuit trick to throw our military President into hysterics; 
divert attention from their own usurpation of San Francisco, and have 
the Japanese immigration laws framed to suit themselves, which the 
President obliging and unjustly did. 

The Protestant countries, United States, England and Ger- 
many, are at peace. So delightfully, restfully at peace that they 
are in the condition of the frog that burst from self-adulation and 
vanity. These countries have hundreds of thousands of idle men in 
garrisons drinking, smoking and gambling to kill time at the expense 
of the nations' tax payers. The heads of these nations parade their 
batallions in glittering uniforms, just as savages don eagle feathers 
and war paint, while their cannons boom salutes of peace. Under 
this military pageant, which is considered an absolute necessity for 
peace, there are substrata of secret, treasonable military companies 
and corporations under the management of religious fanatics, who 
are undermining every step toward peaceful prosperity, through 
their million dollar ''holy" temples of high finance. 

The fact is that not one man in ten thousand knows anything 
about the enemies in our country, or the dangers that threaten our 
institutions through dishonest, treasonable politicians, who like 
Esau, are selling their heritage of civilization for a high seat among 
the dispoilers. 

We are to have more battleships and — , if ''Accommodating 
Protestantism," as O'Donnell calls it in his "Ruin of Education in 
Ireland." still continues to slumber on the bosom of the Roosevelt- 
Taft- Jesuit machine, there will be a Jesuit priest at the helm of every 
one and, possibly, sailors killed in prize fights under their "holy" 
supervision. 

Neglected superncial growths generally lead to the surgeon's 
knife, and the time has come for the safety of the Republic to com- 
pel every voter and every office holder in every department of the 
country, to go on record as a clean, conscientious American. 

There will never be war with the Romanists, from their numeri- 
cal minority, and their usurpation of political power will be speedily 



Peace 33 

overcome at the polls, when the patriotic Americans fully grasp the 
situation. 

"Is France a Republic?" asked the sinister Jesuit fourteen years 
ago. Yes, so proved, by having driven the Jesuits, with their vari- 
ous affiliations, from her soil for the seventeenth time, after which — , 
for the first time — , the President of the Republic was at his post to 
receive his successor and hand over to him the affairs of State; every 
preceeding President having been assassinated or frightened into 
resigning. 

But what of the United States? Here they declare themselves 
exempt from all law, and their treasonable plotting is in full swing. 
They never were so near achieving their purpose. as they are under 
the Roosevelt-Taft administration; with standing armies in Cuba 
and the Phillippines under Jesuit governors and Jesuit dictatorship, 
at the expense of American tax-payers; with the municipal govern- 
ments of all the cities in the hands of their saloon keepers and trained 
grafters, through whom they accumulate billions of property; with 
every industry and enterprise throttled by their walking delegates, 
who institute strikes and l)oycotts to fatten, like vultm-es, upon the 
carcasses of their victims, and a President who sends Romanists on 
all diplomatic missions without the slightest regard to fitness or the 
wishes of nations. China and Japan have Romanist representatives 
with good Irish names, which are like a red flag in the face of a mad 
bull. A professor from the Roman University in Washington was 
sent to Protestant Denmark, although he was so valuable to that 
institution that he could only be replaced in Ireland. 

The press dispatches from New Orleans, April 24, 1907, had the 
following: 

"x\rchbishop Blenk tendered a banquet to two hundred visiting 
prelates this afternoon," etc. The occasion of this great gathering 
of Roman Catholic priests was the return of Archbishop Blenk from 
Porto Rico, where he had been sent by President Roosevelt to repre- 
sent the United States government. There was not a representative 
of the government at this distinguished gathering. There was not 
an American citizen, for Romish priests cannot be American citizens. 

At this banquet of the Pope's politicians from all over the United 
States, we are told that Cardinal Gibbons responded to the first 
toast: "The Holy Father.'' "The President'' smd " Our Country" 
were not recorded. After a long eulogy of the Pope, Cardinal Gib- 
bons contrasted the attitude of the government of France toward 



34 The Question of Romanism 

the church, with the broad, Uberal attitude of the United States, 
and pointed to the treatment of Archbishop Blenk when he went to 
Porto Rico, adding: '*The President has said that Archbishop 
Blenk was a strong factor for the development of the Island, by his 
public preaching and for the excellent relations between church and 
state!" 

The fact is, that all the disturbances in the deep sea Islands, 
particularly in Cuba, the Philippines, and Porto Rico, are caused by 
the efforts of the natives to cast off the papal chains which have kept 
them, for hundreds of years in ignorance; their women concubines of 
the priests, monks and friars, and their children bastards. 

This same Archbishop Blenk, at the banquet of the Romish 
Centennial in New York said: 

''Let us remember in gratitude the name of President Roosevelt. 
He thinks of the American clergy, as he once told me, himself, that 
the hnest human being that walks the earth is a loyal Catholic priest." 

What a traverty on the intelligence, patriotism and acumen of 
this twentieth century statesman! 

Such an assertion from a source which carries with it so much 
power and gives such a false lesson to the youth of the country, de- 
mands an answer. 

''A loyal Catholic priest" is a product of pagan savagery, whose 
only parallel is found in the Brahmin and Buddhist celibate priests. 

The highest ideal of civilization is a MAN, who obex's the laws 
of God, nature, and human progress; not a slave of a politico-religio 
corporation that does not permit him to assume any of the noblest 
duties of life; not one who has sworn away ever}^ supreme right of 
existence, even manhood, through which alone he is entitled to a place 
in the ranks of civilization; not one who has sworn allegiance to a 
man who plays God, for the richest corporation on earth, whose 
assets are heaven, hell and purgatory, to which it claims to hold the 
only keys, and wherein it keeps millions of immoratl souls in torment 
until the price is paid for their release. 

The business of this "finest human being that walks the earth" 
is that of broker for this corporation. He sends disembodied spirits 
to mythical places of torture, to compel the bereaved relati\es to 
pay his corporation to get them out again. 

The following from a Romish ''Official Organ'' would lead one 
to infer that ''the holy father" regards them in the light of feeble- 
minded children. 



Peace 35 

'' Holy See Grants New Privileges. 

''The Holy Father has given new proof of his deep interest in 
the Societ}' for the Propagation of the Faith. In order to incite the 
clergy to help the work he has granted by decree of February 1, 1908, 
to all priests who celebrate alms for the work or who are themselves 
special members of the society, the privileges of applying the Crosier 
Indulgences to Rosaries. This is an indulgence of 500 days for each 
^Our Father' and 'Hail Mary/ applicable to the souls in purgatory. 

"This is a singular favor held by the Crosier Fathers and now 
granted to the clerical helpers of the Propagation of the Faith. It is 
only necessary, therefore, to apply to any priest who is a director 
of the society or a special benefactor thereof to secure this blessing 
of the Rosary." 

A Rosary consists in repeating fifty ''Hail Marys," marked by 
the beads in groups of ten; between each group is said one "Our 
Father;" then the apostles creed, three more "Hail Marys" and 
"Our Father." 

The following is the senseless twaddle that these "finest human 
beings that walk the earth," compel their ignorant followers to re- 
peat like trained parrots, in worship of "Mary." 

"Hail Mary full of grace, blessed art thou among women; blessed 
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mother of God pray for us 
now and at the hour of our death. Amen." 



Chapter IV, 



The Holy Church of Rome, the Mother of Criminals 

Convicted upon the Evidence of her 

own Children 



Leon Boulard, an ex-priest, in the Forum of July, 1888, called 
attention to the fact that seventy-five per cent, of the criminals in 
New York City were members and adherents of the Roman church. 

With almost seven Protestants to every Romanist, the reports 
of our jails and penitentiaries give them eighty-five per cent, of all 
the criminals; most of the paupers, of whom the majority are Irish; 
ninety-five per cent of the saloon-keepers and almost all the brothel 
keepers; besides the majority of juvenile offenders; all of whom 
have received what little education they have in parochial schools. 
Also — the fallen women — eighty-five per cent come out of the 
church of Rome, and their first lessons on the downward path were 
learned in the confessional from the lips of drunken priests, who are 
forced to put the lewd questions of Dens and Liguori to every bud- 
ding girl who comes under their blighting influence. 

In the "Confessions of a French Catholic Priest, p. 108," we read: 

"The sober American people will scarcely believe what I have 
to say about the intemperance of the priests, although I shall not 
tell all the truths. They feast almost daily; they drink to excess; 
they gamble; and when their money is gone they gamhle their masses. 
The winner says to the loser: 'You will say ten, twenty masses for me.' 
He therefore keeps for himself the money he has received from some 
deluded woman, and the loser has to say the masses. 

''Priests call their days of reveling after notable battles. Empty 
bottles they call corpses. They often quarrel on their ^Marengo or 
Austerlitz day when drunk and roll among their bottles in utter 
helplessness." 



The Mother of Criminals 37 

Griffiths' Journal, a Romish sheet, some years ago stated that 
there were not three hundred abstemious priests in the United 
States, which in reahty meant that there were not three hundred 
who were not common drunkards. The priest must fast until after 
mass, taking only the consecrated wine, which they have been known 
to consecrate by the barrel. 

The cruel and unnatural demands of the Romish system, upon 
its unmarried priests, is beyond the possible endurance of the ordi- 
nary man, and there are few who reach the age of thirty without 
falling by the way, or escaping entirely by abandoning their vows, 
which explains the small number of old priests. A few years ago an 
ex-priest was a curiosity, as a man of great nerve to dare to leave the 
priesthood, or one totally given over to satan, but ex-priest Seguin 
says there are now approximately five hundred in the city of Chicago, 
mostly in the liquor and tobacco business. 

Those who have come out of the church say that the duties of 
the confessional, in ferreting out and remembering every lascivious 
thought and every animal desire and act ; besides becoming accessory 
to the most awful crimes, becomes so loathsome that they simply 
cannot endure it. Added to this is the degrading, conscienceless 
duty of forgiving sins and buying souls from purgatory and hell. 

To tell the experiences of nuns and sisters with drunken priests 
would place this work beyond the pale of circulation. Every nun 
must go to confession to the priest whom the superior commands 
her, and that man has the right through the infamous, lewd theology 
of Dens, Liguori and Kendrick to ask her questions which should 
send a dagger through his depraved heart, yet, he is the natural 
product of an unnatural system. 

During a conversation with a beautiful nun in Chicago, in which 
I freely expressed my opinion of priests, she exclaimed in surprise: 

"How well you know them!" and folding her hands she raised 
her eyes heavenward, like the model of a beautiful saint and wailed 
scarcely above a whisper: "Oh, lady, words can never tell what 
we are subjected to at the hands of drunken priests." 

"Then why do you not leave here?" I asked. 

"Leave here?" she whispered glancing nervously toward the 
open door, "Oh, no, they would bring me back, and bad as it is now 
it would be unbearable then. Besides, where could I go, that they 
would not find me. My people would not have me, and 1 have been 
in the convent so long I know nothing of the outside world." 



38 The Question of Romanism 

''This is a Protestant country, my dear/' I said ''and you have 
but to demand protection and you will get it." 

"We are taught that it is Roman Catholic/' she answered. 

>[; >f; ^< ^j ijj >;j 

At the Congress of Religions, Chicago, in 1892, Miss M. T. Elder, 
niece of Bishop Ellder of New Orleans, created profound consterna- 
tion among the Romanists by her paper entitled: '^ Our Twenty 
Million Loss.'^ 

The gist of that paper was that the Romanists are losing in this 
country because the church does not hold the agriculturists. This 
is a very simple proposition and the most obvious facts sustain it, 
but it incited to rage a host of unreasonable, impulsive editors and 
writers who, themselves incapable of discerning the signs of the 
times, were fiercely pugnacious against those who saw with clearer 
vision. 

The attack upon Miss Elder provoked her to reply in the Catho- 
lic Telegraph, in which she not only reiterated her former statements 
but quoted freely from the utterances and writings of others, who are 
of authority in the church, to demonstrate that she was by no means 
extreme in declaring the decline of the Roman church in the United 
States. 

Miss Elder said: "We have been here two centuries and more; 
we have numerous schools, asylums and churches, and still we are 
losing. Our birth rate is large, our immigration enormous, and yet 
we lose." She attributed the deciduous condition of the church to 
the faikire of the priests and missionaries to bring the rural districts 
under Catholic influence. 

This may be true, but progressive Romanists, as earnest as any 
that have fought the battles of the church, assign another reason for 
the loss of ground. They insist that the clergy fail to appreciate the 
changed condition of the laity. While Protestant churches encourage 
discussions of church questions and treat opinions of the laity with 
respect, the priests of the Roman church resent discussion and in- 
dependent thought as an indication of heretical growth or of hostility 
to the church. 

It is a poor structure that will not bear discussion, whether it 
be the house in which we live or the faith to which we pin our im- 
mortal souls. 

Canon Murname said in the Catholic Citizen: 

"Now let me ask what use have the American people at large. 



The Mother of Criminals 39 

for Catholicity? Not one in six of them is a CathoHc, nor is there 
much in the signs of the times to indicate that they are going to be- 
come CathoUcs. What use have they for rehgion? Will they thank 
us for building big churches and convents? Do you see any sign of 
gratitude for our parochial schools? If the drunken neighborhood 
is the Catholic neighborhood; if the drunkards' names in the police 
reports are notoriously those of Catholics; if the saloon goers and 
saloonists are Catholic; if the boodlers who thrive by saloon poUtics 
are Catholic; if the saloon-made paupers and tramps are Catholic, 
'then as a moral force among men Catholicity is done for in that com- 
munity; whatever individual good it may do its members, its force 
for morality is nothing. Chrysostom and Bossuet, aye, or Paul and 
Patrick, could not convert men to such Catholicity; nor can twenty 
universities discover a truer test or a fairer one than that 'the tree 
shall be known by its fruit.' " 

This same Canon Murname, in his paper read to the Catholic 
Truth Conference, Birmingham, England, asked: 

''How can we expect conversions, when a Roman Catholic 
chaplain can assert that of six or seven thousand women brought 
into prison yearly, more than eighty per cent are Catholics." 

Dr. Brownson, whom no one can accuse of Protestant prejudices, 
writing on "Protestantism and Infidelity," made this humiliating 
admission : 

"The worst governed cities in the Union are precisely those in 
which the Catholics are the most influential in elections and have 
the most to do with municipal affairs. We furnish more than our 
share of rowdies, the drunkards and the vicious population of our 
large cities. The majority of grog sellers in the city of New York 
are Catholics, and the portions of the city where grog-selling, drunk- 
enness and filth most abound are those chiefly inhabited by Catholics, 
and we scarcely see the slightest effort made for reformation." 

A few years ago the Associated Press sent out the following 
report from the "Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America." 

"Rev. Father Zurcher, of Buffalo, created a great sensation in 
presenting his report to the Union. 

" 'We have come to the conclusion in Buffalo/ said he, 'that the 
only way to lift up the Cathohc people to total abstinence is to con- 
vert the entire nation and let them carry up the Catholic people with 
them. We cannot convert Catholics individually. We have also 
come to the conclusion that we receive very little help from the 
CathoHc newspapers.' 

" 'Look,' he said, 'here is an advertisement for pure rye whiskey, 
and in the next column is a portrait of Cardinal Gibbons.' 

" 'Here is another advertisement for pure rj^e whiskey, and 



40 The Question of Romanism 

right over it is the picture of the Most Rev. Archbishop Ireland, and 
this is a Cathohc paper.' 

"The Cathohc church in America loses fifty thousand annually, 
sacrificed to drink, while the total abstinence membership is only 
sixty-five thousand." 

In 1892, Pope Leo XIII, sent Monsigneur Satolli to America to 
reform the government of the United States, and he began by order- 
ing bishops to exclude saloon-keepers from official positions in secret 
societies tolerated by the church, but most of the bishops had com- 
promised themselves to such an extent that they could not attack 
the saloons, and the National Brewers' Association in Milwaukee 
turned upon the bishops with a withering reply, saying: 

'^The anathema which the Papal Ablegate pronounced against 
the saloon-keepers created no little surprise among circles famihar 
with the time honored practices of Romish monasteries. The world- 
wide reputation of the brews of the Franciscan monks, the delicious 
alcoholic liquors distilled in Carmelite, Benedictine and other mon- 
asteries; the vast extent of vineyards and capacious cellars of Italian, 
Herman and French cloisters, all bear testimony to the incongruity 
of Satolli's utterances against the sale of articles which the holiest 
orders of his church have from time immemorial manufactured and 
still manufacture, for just such sale, and that too, without the slight- 
est compunction." 

The powerful after-dinner liquors manufactured by the Bene- 
dictine monks, and the world famed cordials of the Carthusian monks 
are for sale in every well regulated saloon. These men who make a 
study of stomachs instead of souls, use the fragrant carnations, the 
pungent buds of the pines and the seductive absynthium in their 
intricate concoctions, which become ambrosia for "gods." 

Some 3"ears ago the world was treated to the following press 
dispatch: 

"There was an interesting celebration at Fecamp (France). 
The fine new building of the Benedictine monks' distillery was dedi- 
cated. Over fifty distinguished guests were present and the cere- 
monies began with the celebration of high mass in the cathedral. 
An interesting feature of the building is an enormous banquet hall, 
around the walls of which are arranged statues of sixteen of the prin- 
cipal abbots of the monastery. The liquor which bears the name of 
the Benedictine monks, who invented it, has been distilled by them 
since 1610. It was used by the monks of those days as medicine 
and stimulant and its popularity dated from the time of Francis I., 
who showed his appreciation of the cordial by making the abbot a 
cardinal." 



The Mother of Criminals 41 

It is pleasing to learn that '^the bottles were corked, labeled and 
sealed by the young girls of the orphanage of the sisters of St. Vin- 
cent de Paul." Slave child labor for the ''holy" saloons! Yet this 
valuable industry was driven from France for the good of the nation. 

In the United States, as all over the world, there is scarcely a 
monastery or convent where there is not a private still or an extensive 
brewery. The ''holy" fathers own some of the largest vineyards 
and most extensive wine interests in California, and their products 
go to the saloons, in which they are interested. 

September, 1895, the San Francisco Examiner published the 
following: 

"For the first time in the history of the city of churches ( Brook- 
lyn), an officer of the government paid a visit to a religious institu- 
tion and demanded to know by what right the sale of liquor was con- 
ducted within its walls. And in all probability for the first time in 
the history of Brooklyn, a religious institution showed a government 
license for the sale of liqursr. 

"For some time past Revenue Collector John Kelly has received 
complaints from liquor dealers, that the sisters of the convent of 
St. Dominic were daily in the habit of retailing wine at a price far 
below what the liquor dealers could, and, as a result, they were being 
ruined by an institut7ion they helped to support. They complained 
that every morning women and little children could be seen leaving 
the convent carrying demijohns filled with wine. 

"September 12th, a deputy international insj^ector called on the 
sisters for an explanation and was shown a revenue license, but no 
city hcense. Sister Udocia admitted the seUing of the wine. The 
wine, she at first said, came from a vineyard owned by the order in 
California, and shortly afterwards she made a statement that the wine 
was collected by the sisters in their rounds for charity." 

"Seven years ago, John Orr, a builder, constructed a wine cel- 
lar in the basement of this institution, one hundred feet square. 
Golden weddings, silver weddings and receptions have been held in 
the large hall of the convent and on these occasions wine has been 
sold. On July 4, 1894, the golden wedding of ex-charity commis- 
sioner, John Raber, was celebrated there by a big banquet, at which 
orphan girls acted as waitresses, and wine was served." 

About the same time articles appeared in the public press with 
regard to the order of St. Vincent, that had been brewing "holy" 
beer, at Latrobe, Pennsylvania, for about fifty years without paying 
excise duty, with the result that they were estimated to be worth over 
$60,000,000. The beer had a wide sale in the middle states, netting 
the church of Rome an immense income. The article continues: 

"These holy men of the holy church of Rome have been running 



42 The Question of Romanism 

scores of rum-shops in different parts of the State, in fact there is 
hardly a village in the State where you will not see the sign: 

"St. Vincent Beer Sold HereV 

The great ship building industry, known as the Union Iron 
Works, San Francisco, was totally destroyed by the settlement of 
Irish saloon keepers who surrounded it and instigated labor agitations. 
Every house was a saloon or boarding house with a saloon, and no 
man could go to or from his work without passing at least twenty 
of these ''dead falls." The houses were ramshackle, filthy places; 
the main room opening on the street, and the floor, covered with 
sawdust, reeked with the odor of stale beer. A filthy table with a 
greasy pack of cards and a half dozen chairs, a cheap bar, a couple 
of shelves with bottles 'of different kinds of liquor, a mirror deco- 
rated with fancy paper, and a half dozen kegs of beer, constituted 
the entire outfit, from which the family not only made a living but 
accumulated property. 

Some of these places have an inner room with saw-dust covered 
floor, a wooden table covered with oilcloth, and a few rickety chairs, 
which convert them into boarding houses or hotels. In all cases the 
family lives there. When the man is away the wife tends bar and the 
children run about her. In many instances the saloons are run by 
women, who obtain the licenses. I have seen a boy, twenty months 
old, staggering drunk and his drunken mother laughing at him. 
On pay days the men go first to settle their saloon bills. The woman 
is always in evidence. When a man pays, she treats, and he must 
not only treat her in return, but he must call every loafer in the 
saloon, and she manages to have many of them, to drink with him. 
The result is, that many high wage-earners leave the bar in debt to 
the woman, for their coming week's wages. 

Peonage, in Mexico, has been derided as cunning financial slavery, 
but the cheap saloons presided over by women in labor districts in 
the United States, have a slave system, of which few people have 
the slightest conception. Their sons are all drunken criminals and 
their daughters fill the brothels, yet they are all in good standing 
with the church, and attend mass regularly every Sunday. 

The policemen of these districts are of their own faith and kind, 
and instead of enforcing the law, they encourage the crimes. Two 
little girls, eleven and thirteen were reported to the Society for the 
Suppression of Vice, and the case was handed over to one of the 
officers who was a Romanist. He reported back to the mother, and 



The Mother of Criminals 43 

the entire neighborhood rose and came near lynching the person 
who dared to interfere with the freedom of their neighborhood. 

When these Irish saloon women refuse their sons money, they 
beat them till they get it. One young fellow, twenty years old, took 
an ax and crashed a four hundred dollar piano down the center, 
because his mother did not give him the amount he demanded. 
This same fellow left home for a couple of months to avoid the con- 
sequences of paternity, and before his child was six hours old it was 
consigned to St. Joseph's orphan asylum to be supported by the State, 
and become a life slave of the Corporation of Rome. If it partakes 
of the elements of its origin, it may be sent, like the late Leo XIII, 
at the early age of eight to a Jesuit prison where it will not be per- 
mitted to learn anything but tales of saints; hatred of heretics, and 
possibly be appointed on the secret service of the ^'holy Inquisition.'' 
One thing is certain, this American born child will never know a 
moment of freedom, mentally or physically. He is a slave of the 
corporate system of Rome, and in all probability will wear his life out 
cooking or laundering in a Jesuit institution, as a ''Christian brother." 
These neglected, abandoned children of the government are taken 
prisoners by the wily Jesuits, and become the bulwark of displace- 
ment of every progressive, humane and free institution under the 
stars and stripes. 

The February, 1907, report of the California Society for the Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Children, in San Francisco, showed that the 
number of complaints was the largest in the history of the society. 
That the majority of cases of neglect and misery was due to drunken- 
ness. In the causes for complaint, the drunkenness of the fathers 
was cited seven times and the drunkenness of the mothers, twenty- 
one, and they were almost all Romanists. 

The Romish church in the United States, as everywhere e^se, is 
hopelessly, irreparably rent asunder. The intelligent classes are 
represented by the ''Old CathoHcs," who rebelled against "Infalli- 
bility and the "anti-clerics" who lead the progressive or "Modern- 
ists." The Jesuits control the Pope, the hierarchy and the ignorant 
masses, and strange to say, the pohticians, from the President down 
to the lowest bar room loafer, have surrendered to the Jesuits, whose 
teachings stand for everything that is debased in the human famih^ 
Every slum district in every city, reeking in drunkenness, filth, de- 
pravity, corruption and degenerate humanity, is always under 
Jesuit domination; absolutely and entirely, the unadulterated 



44 The Question of Romanism 

product of ignorant foreign priests, the replica of which cannot be 
found in any Protestant quarter of the globe. 

Father Chiniquy, asks: "Where then must we look for the 
cause of these stupendous facts, if not in the corrupt teachings of 
Romanism. And how can Roman Catholics hope to raise themselves 
in the scale of Christian dignity and morality, as long as a half million 
priests are allowed to remain in their midst; priests who are bound 
in conscience, every day to pollute the minds and hearts of mothers 
and sisters and daughters? No wonder that priests themselves are 
asking: ^ Would we not be more chaste and pure by living with law- 
ful wives than by daily exposing ourselves in the confessional, in the 
company of women whose presence irresistably drags us into shame- 
ful pits of impurity.' " 

The astonishing paradox remains; that only in the three great 
Protestant nations of the world, the United States, England and 
Germany, are these religious outlaws permitted, absolute freedom 
to debauch the children of the nation. 

With the Jesuit motto, "the end justifies the means," these 
foreign priests "are all things to all men." They sell forgiveness for 
sins and indulgences to commit more, to every grade of humanity, 
from the prince in the cathedral to the outcast in the brothel. 

None know the weakness of the Romish church in the United 
States, better than the Jesuits whose churches are almost abandoned 
to women and children. They know that fully three-fourth of the 
men are "modernists," who remember the conditions of the Romish 
countries from whence they came; who know the state of ignorance 
and poverty in which the "holy fathers" kept their ancestors, and 
they do not want popery. 

The Irish alone, stand solidly, dumbly, like a broken, dis- 
integrating wall, a menace to the peace of American citizens, in their 
blind devotion to their Italian masters, the popes. 

What Have the Popes Done for- Ireland? 

. Pope Adrian IV sold Ireland to King Henry II, of England for 
"Peter's pence." He entered into a contract by which every adult 
was taxed a penny weekly, for the pope, and contribution boxes, 
marked "Peter's pence," were placed in all the cathedrals, rehgious 
houses and public places throughout the realm. Not long ago Pius 
X, recommended "energetic action" to make Peter's pence popular 
throughout the United States. It was said that this tax upon the 
English gave the pope $1,000,000 per year, and Pius X suggested 
that it should reach $500,000 in this countrv. 



The Mother of Criminals 45 

Fifty years ago, the Irish in the United States constituted the 
majority of the industrious, laboring class, both men and women. 
Today, they are the majority of the saloon and brothel keepers, and 
the women swell the outcast class. Lord Dunraven, President of 
the Irish Reform, Association, gives the following statistics of Ireland: 

''Ireland has a continued outflow of population to America, and 
an increased inflow of population to the lunatic and idiot as3dums. 
The birthrate is almost the smallest in the world. The best stock is 
always anxious to get away, and nothing restrains it save the in- 
ability to raise the money. The agricultural laborer in seven coun- 
ties averages less than $2.50 per week. Farmers go to England and 
Scotland when temporary increase of labor is needed at harvest, in 
order to earn for a short time about $4.00 per week. Between 1801 
and 1901, the population of England and Wales increased from 
8,892,536 to 32,526,075; that of Ireland decreased from 5,385,546 to 
4,458,775. In 1851 the number of lunatics and idiots in Ireland 
was one in 657; 1901, it was one in 178, or more than four times as 
large. Cancer and tuberculosis are making rapid strides. Paupers 
per 100,000 in England and Wales since 1863 have decreased about 
60 per cent, while in Ireland they have about doubled. The Catholic 
Tidings of September 6, 1907, reprints a correspondence between 
one MacDermot of_Coolavin, Manasteraden Co., Sligo, August 9, 
in which MacDermot writes the following: 

'' 'Miseries, unfortunately, have sought other palliatives than 
religion. Drink is the most common and the most dreadful. Statis- 
tics of intemperance teach one as little of the extent of the evil as 
would a page of algebraical signs. But what is better than volumes 
of figures is the personal experience of every man and w^oman of the 
evils and miseries and horrors which he and she meet with on every 
side, every hour of the day. In proportion to the population, Ire- 
land suffers to a most deplorable extent from the evils of drink. 
The laws of nature are inexorable, because they are the decrees of 
God, and neither prayers nor the existence of all the other virtues 
can avert the extermination of a people given to intemperance. Ire- 
land, the humble servant of spiritual obedience, is rapidly sinking 
under persistent violation of all physical law. Unless the spiritual 
powers come to the rescue, the doom of these people is not far dis- 
tant.' " 

According to the census of "Crime, Pauperism and Benevo- 
lence," there were in the United States, January 1, 1890, 4,142,199 
persons, both of whose parents were born in Ireland. Of these 13,- 
490 were confined in prisons, and there were also 2,587 juvenile of- 
fenders of Irish parentage. This striking proportion of criminals 
cannot be found among any other nationality in the country, and 
they are the loyal and logical products of Romanism. 



46 The Question of Romanism 

Fully eighty-five per cent of the Romanists of the world are ab- 
solutely illiterate; trained to the abiding conviction that salvation 
here and hereafter depends not upon personal integrity and upright 
conduct, but upon the creed and conformity to ritualistic conditions. 
To be a good Romanist does not necessarily mean to be a good man. 

The Roman hierarchy in this country confirms this false philoso- 
phy, by retaining in full fellowship with the church men and women 
of notoriously corrupt lives; expulsion from the church being un- 
known, except for heresy. ^'Once a Romanist always a Romanist." 

The fact that so great a number of the saloon keepers and 
brothel keepers in this country are Romanists in full fellowship, and 
have the most imposing funerals from the cathedrals, makes the cor- 
poration of Rome responsible for the gigantic evils of the liquor traf- 
fic. The saloons directly and indirectly are the causes of more 
poverty, ignorance, vice, lawlessness, political corruption, violence 
and crime than all other causes combined. The Romish church, by 
sanctioning this iniquitous business, becomes morally responsible 
for all its hideous consequences. The saloon keeper, the murderer, 
and all classes of criminals, howeves vile may have been their method 
of accumulating money, can, for a price, receive at death the holiest 
rites of the church and he consigned to purgatory with the blessed 
assurance that their own suffering and the efficacy of masses paid for 
by their friends, or by endowment created by themselves, Avill effect 
a happy deliverance and in due time land them in paradise. A 
striking illustration of this was published in the leading journals 
of the country, from Chicago, August 12, 1907, as follows: 

"High Tribute to Mike McDonald." 

''Mike McDonald, who was for many years a picturesque figure 
in the political and sporting life of Chicago, was buried today. Rev. 
Father Maurice J. Dorney, rector of St. Gabriel's Roman Catholic 
church, in his sermon following the requiem high mass sung at the 
church of Our Lady of Sorrows, praised him in these words: 

''Ask Lyman J. Gage for his estimate of Mike McDonald. 
Doubtless he will tell you that Mike's word and his paper were good. 

"Who was instrumental in placing Murry F. Tuley in the com- 
mon Council of Chicago? Mike McDonald. 

"Who subsequently had a great share in placing Murry F. Tuley 
on the bench? Mike McDonald. 

"Who placed that other great jurist, McAllister, on the bench? 
Mike McDonald. 

"Who was it that gave to the city of Chicago one of its best 
health commissioners, and at a time that Chicago needed a big man 



The Mother of Criminals 47 

for the position? I refer to Dr. Wickersham. Mike McDonald. 
''Who was it they called the 'king of politicians and gamblers/ 
but whose shrewdness enabled him to exercise such power? Mike 
McDonald." 

The same Journals had previously informed the pubhc that 
Mike McDonald, upon acquiring wealth, after the way of successful 
saloon men and gamblers, built himself a fine house, and his wife, 
being a devout Irish Romanist, had a chapel built in it after the fash- 
ion of wealthy European women whose confessors look after their 
spiritual wants. 

One day Mrs. McDonald eloped to Europe with her confessor, 
but the confessor, who had not evolved to the animal plane of mat- 
ing, wearied of • his single companion and deserted her. She re- 
turned to America, but "Mike" had gotten a divorce and was mar- 
ried again to a Jewess. Even this compound sin was easily over- 
come by "Mike's" wealth, and he passed on to a front seat in heaven, 
through the highest ceremonies of the cathedral. 

Saloons are intelligence bureaus for brothels, gambling houses 
and low dens of vice in every city and town. Most of the saloon 
keepers, bartenders and their hangers on — professional mackereux — 
own the 500,000 women in this free Republic, whom the}/ keep drunk 
and drugged, and whom they sell for one dollar or less, to negroes, 
chinamen, and filthy, deceased creatures of all nationalities. 

The life of these white slaves is such an outrage against nature 
that five years constitutes the limit of life as a public prostitute, yet 
this money buys immortal spirits of God from purgatory and keeps 
them from hell, and the transaction is labeled "Religion"! 



Chapter V. 



Is the Twentieth Century a Civilized A^e? 



Can a people who know as little of the uses and possibilities of 
the human brain, as the most learned of this age, be called CIVI- 
LIZED? 

Can a religion that trains human minds backwards and holds all 
intellects under one leash, like trained animals; that has not evolved 
beyond the animal plane of the physical senses; punishment and re- 
ward; pleasure and pain — the toys and hobgoblins of children — be 
CIVILIZED? 

Can a nation that permits bells — the invention of savages to keep 
the devil away — to clang three times a day in every district in every 
city, town and hamlet, to call millions to worship THE MOTHER 
OF GOD, be classed as CIVILIZED? 

Let us start with the hypothesis that there is a higher philosophy 
and ultimate utility of earth life than the human race has yet dis- 
covered. That this world has undergone some fearful and disas- 
terous calamity; possibly the tail of a comet or a meteor may have 
touched it and changed its position, or through millions of years of 
gradual change its electrical communication with the heavenly sys- 
tem may have been severed. 

The wisest can only conjecture! Yet all traditions tell of a 
great flood; some claim a lost Atlantes — a sunken continent. Some- 
thing disturbed the entire topography of the world at some remote 
period, as the shells and fossils from the profundus of the seas, found 
upon our highest mountains, and the trophies of the Tropics in the 
Arctics, attest. 



Is this a Civilized Age? 49 

One thing is certain; our world has been cut off from the electri- 
cal track of communication, and has been groveling in darkness for 
ages. With the discovery of electricity, a glorious light has dawned 
upon the earth which has, figuratively, given it wings. Electricity is 
unquestionably the force which keeps our planet in action and with 
the development of its use, the human family may recover its intelli- 
gent communication with the other worlds of the parent system. 
Not only through wireless telegraphy and intricate machines, but 
through the electric battery which every human being carries in his 
head, as the divine jewel of life. 

Science has lifted the human race from dull plodders, to laborers 
of leisure, who have not yet learned the value of unemployed time 
for self-development and mental and spiritual unfoldment, for the 
mind that has been hermetically sealed from infancy, by sacerdota- 
lism, is slow to awaken and the spiritual ego timid of self-assertion. 

The savagery of the present age is proclaimed by the utter lack 
of intelligent development and protection of the human race. A 
good farmer carefully breeds his cattle; even the much despised hog 
has its pedigree; and dogs — the master seeks long and cautiously be- 
fore mating a blooded dog, that the intelligence, disposition and 
natural instincts of the breed may be carefully transmitted, but what 
of that man's son — what of that man's daughter? They run with 
the wild band and mate according to animal attraction or the con- 
troling animal inclination of physical development. 

The two overpowering considerations are money and animal 
desire. The man or woman with wealth, according to the highest 
social laws of the age, is in as great danger of being literally held up 
and robbed of life's happiness, by social criminals in high places, as 
they would have been by brigands in the dark ages, for money is the 
all-controlling power which pervades every department of life from 
religious corporations to petty thieves. This is a period of material- 
ism unparalleled in the history of the world, in comparison with 
which, the fable of the age of ''the golden calf", is a nursery rhyme. 

Harriot Young, the first polygamous wife of Brigham Young, 
said, as we were seated in the large double parlors of the ''Bee 
Hive," the famous home in Salt Lake City, of the great Mormon 
leader: 

"I have seen as many as one hundred and forty of President 
Young's children in these rooms at one time." 

"And you were one of the wives?" I ventured. 



50 The Question of Romanism 

''Yes, there were sixteen of us living here at that time." 

''How could you be one of many wives?" I asked. 

She shot a scornful glance from her steel gray eyes, while her 
bony frame without an ounce of superfluous flesh, became if possible 
more erect. Her strong features were harmoniousl}' framed in a 
gingham sunbonnet which was turned back from her face, as if in 
defiance of conventionalities, and a small brown and white woolen 
shawl neatly folded about her shoulders, made her a master's model 
for Cruel Conquest of Destiny. 

"You could not, because you were properly got," she an- 
swered. 

"Properly got — I don't understand you," I said. 

"Well, you were a welcome child of love, any one can see that 
by your build and your well-nourished body, but for one like you 
there are thousands like me; who were not properly got." 

"You interest me greatly," I answered. "Please explain more 
fully what you mean." 

"Well, most children are the result of an animal act without any 
responsibility on the part of the man, and a dread and fear of the 
result on the part of the woman. Sometimes she is sick and not fit 
to bring a child into the world and the child is puny and not pro- 
perly got. Sometimes there are already more little ones than they 
can feed and she don't want any more, and that child is not properly 
got. Then again, there are women who were never intended to be 
mothers any more than the drones in the bee-hives, and they hate 
the things they must nourish and can't get rid of, and they gener- 
ally breed criminals and murderers. Even good people are not al- 
wa}/s ready for a new baby. They would rather wait until they are 
better off or until some event in which they are interested had 
passed; and society women, almost all, bring unwelcome children 
into the world — all poorly got. I was one of a large family and they 
didn't want me. I was starved from the time I was conceived, and 
I know I don't feel like women who are properly got." 
. "Have you children?" I asked. 

"One son, because — ;" There was no maternal fire in the cold 
gray eyes as she offered the hard apology: "I am a female." 

"What about the other women, were they all like you or had 
you no opportunity of knowing?" 

"Oh, yes, I knew them all," and her thin lips came together 
like a spring trap. "I am a tailoress, and was working at my trade 



Is this a Civilized Age? 51 

when I met Brigham Young. It was his first wife who suggested 
that he should make me his second wife, and I taught the other 
women tailoring. Oh, this Bee-hive has been a busy place, for we 
made all the men's clothes." 

''Were the other women all contented here?" 

''Well, now! What a question! You know what human na- 
ture is. Some folks wouldn't be contented in heaven, but as a 
rule they were grateful for what they got. You see, they were most- 
ly women who had neither homes nor friends and generally not 
enough to eat, so shelter and full stomachs seemed, pretty much 
like being in the kingdom of heaven." 

Harriot Young believed that men and women who are "not 
properly got," and they are the majority, are lacking the spiritual 
qualit}^ of mating and the exalted impulse of reproduction. In 
short, they are not evolved from the bands of human cattle, and it is 
these imperfect creatures who form the outcast class; who marry 
for homes, money or titles; who forswear paternity and maternity, 
for the herding lives in monasteries and convents As the Mormon 
woman who can be one of many wives, they are outcasts of nature, 
like fruits that fall from the trees without ripening. They are born 
deficient the instinct of spiritual mating, from which alone paternal 
and maternal love can germinate. Yet, we have a so-called ^^civi- 
lized government ^ that gives the children of the nation into the keep- 
ing of these self-confessed drones of the human hive. 

The most inhuman savagery and basest criminality of the age 
is the utter lack of intelligent care of the progeny of the nation. 
Children born under a government are wards of that government, 
yet the United States, instead of following the intelligent lead of 
France and honorably and wisely guarding its children; dumbly, 
ignorantly, like the mothers of the Ganges, thrusts its children into 
the insatiable maw of a foreign corporation, that has no more right 
or place in the United States, than the cobra-de-capello of the Indian 
jungle has in the lap of American liberty. 

These children are trained, not educated, by superstitious, ig- 
norant bigots who prune the budding brains into the exact form, 
shape and size of their own fossilized members which have been 
dwarfed by miracles, fables and idle worship. Instead of awakening 
bright minds to the present live conditions, their church has cursed 
them, as "moderism", and they are trained backward into savagery. 
These so-called teachers are almost all foreigners and sworn enemies 



52 The Question of Romanism 

of every free, progressive and intelligent law of our land. In many 
cases, as the government abandons all moral responsibility, these 
children never return to the world, but are retained as life slaves; 
working illiterates, in the cellars of the various work-houses of the 
corporations of Rome, and slaves — in defiance of the thirteenth 
amendment of the Constitution. 

The juvenile courts are almost always presided over by Romish 
judges of Jesuit choosing, and it has proven impossible to keep Pro- 
testant children out of Romish institutions, even when offered good 
homes. Children of tender years are consigned by law until they 
are fourteen years old, but who knows, who cares — what becomes 
of them so long as they do not jar upon the nerves of the grafting 
politicians who give them into bondage. It is but natural that these 
unfortunate victims of a criminal government, trained by men and 
women who know nothing practical or useful, swell the outcast class 
and become a permanent care and expense to the States, as the crea- 
tures of saloons, brothels and prisons; while their teachings of de- 
fiance to all laws, but those of the church, make them anarchists. 
Their perverted training has made them as lacking in fitness for the 
duties of life as a blind man for art, and their parrot-like religious 
training merely guides them to the priest as the representative of 
God on earth, who has absolute charge of heaven, hell and purga- 
tory and can forgive their sins. They are trained idiots in the prac- 
tical affairs of life and spiritual idiots in their lack of moral respon- 
sibility. 

All public school children know that every human being has a 
front and back brain. That the brains consist of soft gray matter, 
encased in white tissues, which fill the cavitj^ of the skull. Although 
this brain and nerve tissue appear the samie in all human beings, 
there is undoubtedly a strong difference, as our statesmen, criminals 
and idiots affirm. 

A dog can live, automatically, without a brain and there is no 
physical reason why a man cannot, but he cannot live after the .re- 
moval of any other organ of the body, except the stomach, which 
has the duodenum for a poor substitute. This proves that the brain 
is not a vital organ, but a separate organism — a machine — placed in 
the cranium by an intelligence beyond the present conception of 
man; for uses which are not yet unfolded. Its relation to man is 
what the flame is to the candle. Its construction is that of a perfect 
electrical batter}' with infinite cells which act under the positive 



Is this a Civilized Age? 53 

force of one brain upon the negative force of the other. That the in- 
tricate network of nerves in the human body are all conductors to 
that battery is a simple fact. Touch a hot object or cut your finger 
and the fact is telegraphed to the brain battery, before the less sensi- 
tive parts have felt the shock; eat indigestible food and the brain is 
the first to suffer; disturb, in the slightest degree a single delicate 
nerve or conductor and the entire brain battery gets out of order. 
The brain not only responds to physical disturbances but is a re- 
sponsive, sympathetic master of human sentiments, affections, 
aspirations and all the exalted spiritual attributes of human possi- 
bilities. Heartaches are only demands of the overtaxed mental ma- 
chine calling upon the circulatory power for greater force in its 
system. 

We speak of great intellects, of fertile brains and brilliant wits, 
and it simply means that certain human beings have been born with 
healthy nervous systems and well developed brains which have been 
carefully cultivated. An illiterate may have been born with equal 
brain of as fine quality and texture, but lack of education has left it 
a mental desert. 

Healthy brains not only absorb knowledge, as a sponge does 
water, but they hunger for knowledge. To be learned and brilliant 
the electrical storehouse, or brain cells, must be filled with varied and 
useful knowledge, as a phonograph, as yet an undeveloped instru- 
ment, must be supplied with innumerable cylinders well selected. 

"Give me the child until he is twelve years old and you can have 
him," says the Jesuit. By that time his brain cells are full of fables, 
miracles, unnatural and impossible lives of saints, all of w^hich con- 
stitute his religion, his only way to heaven. Everything else leads 
to hell, purgatory and the devil, and he is ready to kill or die for it. 
His brain — his God-given temple, has been filled with vipers ver- 
min and pollution. He has never heard of God. Knows nothing of 
divine mercy and holy love for all created things. He is an intellec- 
tual and spiritual outcast of the criminal civilized Christian gov- 
ernment. 

All human beings of mediocre intelligence can talk of the ordi- 
nary conventionalities of life; the philosopher or scientist can use the 
same commonplace language, but introduce the subject of his spec- 
iality, to which he has devoted the labor of years, and he will reveal 
the secrets of his treasure-stored brain cells, as the photographer 
reproduces pictures from the negatives he has carefully stored in his 



54 The Question of Romanism 

laboratory. Talk to the artist of trade and he is silent, but speak of 
art and you touch the electric wire that sends the searchlight into 
the cylinders of his brain where color, form, and texture are unfolded, 
like sunlight dispersing clouds. 

We might follow these thoughts ad-infinitu7n. The fact is un- 
questionable that the human brain is a perfect electrical machine of 
which the phonograph is a feeble imitation; as the two small cans 
with a connecting string, of mirth-loving boys, were the first tele- 
phone. The cells of the brain are the cylinders which contain the 
intelligence that is stored there through the senses or searchers after 
knowledge. You say to a child: "Recite your new verses/' and 
the little one begins to unfold the contents of the cells to w^hich your 
request has telegraphed. He may not have the power sufficiently 
developed to respond at once to the electrical touch and must be 
helped by the first word or sentence. 

Ask a musician to play a certain composition; the name at once 
conducts to the brain cell which contains the long and intricate melo- 
dy which he reproduces perfectly. Yet, he is as passive mentally and 
wholly unconscious of mental effort while engaged in unfolding the 
secrets of his mental storehouse, and quite as automatic as a phono- 
graph, though less mechanical. 

The brain cells in their present undeveloped condition, while 
responsive to training and capable of increased power are limited in 
their capacity, just as a bucket holds so much water and no more. 
The vicious system of cramming and unsystematic study is like play- 
ing a dozen tunes into the same cylinder at once, and results in con- 
fusion and chaos. 

Physical fitness of the pregnant mother is the basis of normal 
construction of the human brain. Prenatal conditions which are 
absolutely ignored by the masses, should be regarded as a divine 
privilege. The unborn child should be studied and modeled with the 
tender love and care that a sculptor breathes into the stone which he 
transmogrifies. The brains of children should be treated with as 
much scientific care and moral responsibility as virulent smallpox, 
for perverted brains are more fatal to the progress of the human 
family. The scientific world should treat brainless children as na- 
ture would treat them if the}' were deficient other organs. If there 
is a soul encased back of the mental darkness, it would be merciful 
to release it. 

If children were educated and directed according to the quality, 



Is this a Civilized Age? 55 

quantity and usefulness of their brain forces, instead of being turned 
loose upon the world like wild animals, the social world would not be 
continually in the throes of theology ground out of criminal brains, 
fine arts from blacksmiths, and jurisprudence from blockheads. 

The ancients recognized a psychical or sixth sense, which mod- 
ern education totally ignores. This sense might be designated as 
the electrical sense; the spiritual messenger that goes out of the body. 
For instance, a man walking along the street suddenly thinks of a 
person he has not seen for years, and he comes face to face with him, 
or finds a letter from him on his return. Volumes could be written 
of similar experiences of hourly occurence. They are the wireless 
telegraphy of the soul, and came into the world with the first mother. 
These electrical currents in mammels are so strong, that hunger or 
distress of an infant produces pain to the mother. Highly sensi- 
tive mothers know when their children are suffering hundreds, even 
thousands of miles away. When such sympathetic telegrams are so 
forcibly transmitted at short range with uncultivated brain matter, 
why should not the brain machine become so finely developed that 
it could receive intelligence and transmit thought to other worlds of 
which our world is an isolated school house, full of ignorant mortals 
crying for admission to the great, unresponsive source of their 
creation. 

Mediums tell us they see forms and hear messages. We smile 
because we do not see nor hear them; neither do the mediums, but 
telepathy is a proven science, which demonstrates that thought 
waves can be sent and received by responsive minds; that human be- 
ings can receive electric telegrams upon the brain which produce the 
actual effect of sight and sound. These messages are necessarily 
imperfect because the mental machines which transmit them are 
undeveloped. They resemble, in their electrical relations to higher 
realms, the instincts of animals, but who dares to say that the pres- 
ent imperfect efforts at ''spirit communication" are not the fore-run- 
ners of a great and universal science, before which the intellectual' 
grandeur and far-reaching unfoldment of the human race will do 
away with this material age in which a hopeless beggar can neither- 
buy a seat in heaven nor a passport from hell; when every mortal- 
will be a God whose reasoning faculties will worship at a God-given 
shrine through his own mental altar, and that altar will be guarded 
form disease and cherished from debauchery as a sacred part of the 
infinite: When a man's bank account will cease to be the plaything 



56 The Question of Romanism 

called ''money", but the force and perfection of the electrical men- 
tal battery which he carries with him, to talk, as the ancients claimed 
they could, with God. 

If the laborer who tramps with his heavy burden all day, to 
feed and clothe those he loves, was educated to believe that he was 
the son of God, himself; an actual, indestructable part of the su- 
preme essence — instead of a common slave unworthy of the dry 
bread he eats and doomed to eternal damnation if he rebels against 
his hard lot, or refuses to pay the priest for the forgiveness of his 
sins — ; would his only ambition be, to get drunk and forget that he 
lived? Would the human race if given a link with something higher 
than this life, be in such mad haste to destroy themselves — for nine- 
tenths of the human family suicide in some form. The public vices 
are a small percentage of the secret ones that are covered by hypo- 
cracy, under religious labels. 

It is not the victims of their own excesses, condemned by the 
world, who are the worst criminals, but the methodical, sanctimo- 
nious h3^pocrites, who are as lacking in mirth and spontaneous hu- 
amanity as mud turtles; whose natures are as cunning, secretive and 
designing as trap-door spiders. 

We seem to be reaching the climax of human savagery, when 
the President of the United States advises a multiplicity of children 
for fear of ''race suicide", without a word of intelligent advice as to 
the elevation and improvement of the genus. 

Mr. Roosevelt is an iconoclast — a destroyer — one who knows 
not how to build. He tears at everything the world has skillfully 
and patiently evolved from out the ages of mental darkness, but he 
has not offered one single intelligent remedy. "Breed! Breed!" 
anything, only breed; he advises with the same consistency that he 
wrote a personal letter to a celibate Roman Priest, at Reno, Ne- 
vada, congratulating him on his excellent sermon on" Race Suicide." 

The priest was so elated that he declared there should not be an 
unmarried man in his parish — except himself. 

Where has the President passed his life that he does not know 
that the world has been breeding for ages with the same lack of moral 
responsibility which he now recommends; that through this outrage 
against civilization there are millions of criminals and helpless human 
beings robbing the capable and industrious of the time, strength 
and means for study and mental culture, which is the only source of 
civilization. 



Is this a Civilized Age? 57 

Inebriates and idiots are cared for by law, but there is no provi- 
sion for wornout, overburdened mottiers. There are no schools 
where youths are taught the duties of their sublime office in nature, 
paternity and maternity. 

When the licentious world of pleasure; of suicide mentally and 
morally, is protected in large cities and every town of the country 
by licenses for immorality, and in many, by laws enforcing medical 
examinations of prostitutes, that men may safely debauch them- 
selves, it is time to establish examining boards of physicians to pass 
upon applicants for marriage, as to physical fitness to reproduce the 
human family. No farmer would breed a diseased animal, but the 
human race has not evolved to that standard of intelligence. 

Men with syphilitic poison in their veins inoculate unborn 
children with as deadly virus as that of the rattlesnake. It is the 
''sins of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." 

We have women in the last stages of tuberculosis bearing chil- 
dren, We have blind mutes propagating their kind, and we have 
women spending their period of gestation in insane asylums. 

I saw a woman, a granger's wife, who was bearing her fifth 
child in a State insane asylum. It was said that she became rational 
after the children were born. We have men and women with all 
kinds of diseases propagating their miseries, with no one to interfere 
for the salvation of the innocent victims of this licentious license. 
We have men and women who never draw a sober breath, breeding 
like swine. 

A drunkard said to me, ''What can you expect? My father 
and mother were both drunkards. It is part of my blood, but I'll 
never curse another human being with it. I'd rather kill a child 
than have it eaten up by this damnable thirst for whiskey." 

In cases of insanity, the martyrdom of the innocent is still great- 
er, for the law forbids release, and the innocent are irretrievably 
chained to their mad companions. This so-called civilized age is a 
reversal of punishment, in which the innocent are vicarious 
martyrs. 

I helped to raise a woman from the sidewalk, a few months ago, 
who had fallen in an epileptic fit. She was on the eve of becoming a 
mother, and I accompanied her home. Ten days later I went to in- 
quire after her and found she had, that morning, given birth to her 
fourth son. The husband,, reeking with bad whiskey, but wreathed 
in smiles, said: 



58 The Question of Romanism 

''I think President Roosevelt ought to send me a medal. I'm 
obeyin' orders all right. No race suicide in mine, you bet! The 
oldest there aint five years old yet/' and he pointed to three bullet- 
headed, blear-eyed urchins sitting on the dirty floor staring at me 
with sullen, beclouded minds. 

I asked a neighbor about these people and learned that the 
woman, a foreign illiterate, was a confirmed epileptic, v/ho, when the 
world becomes civilized, will not be permitted to breed incompe- 
tents and degenerates for industrious, intelligent people to work 
and provide for. 

The only remedy for this barnacle-freighted social condition is 
the surgeon's knife, which has been often recommended but fought 
to the finish by mental perverts with maudlin sentiments. 

When one London surgeon can say that he has taken out a bas- 
ket full of ovaries, and a woman's ovary is only the size of a peeled 
almond — and most of these were from society women who did not 
want to be burdened with the inconvenience of maternity and the 
natural demands of nature — it is time that the thinking world em- 
ployed the same means to better the conditions of the human family; 
to save the willing workers from being crushed under the burdens of 
the incompetent; compel habitual drunkards and all States prison 
convicts to pass over the operating table, and there will be fewer con- 
victs. Let no man who has suffered civil death be permitted to pro- 
pagate his kind. Although the ignominy would be great, it would 
not equal the burden of shame and disgrace which he imposes upon 
the innocent members of his family. 

The so-called relationships among families, from the perverted 
teachings which overshadow everything we do, is constantly tearing 
down the good and useful by placing them as props and supports 
under the worthless and incompetent; compelling them to bear the 
burdens of those who cannot and will not attempt to stand alone, 
which renders the helpless more helpless and destroys the usefulness 
and retards the progress of the capable and worthy. 

There can be but one relationship; equality of intellect. All 
else comes under the head of tolerance. Relationship, as now de- 
fined, is a romantic perversion of all laws governing creation. There 
are no greater incongruities or diametrically opposed forces in nature 
than are found in the offspring of the same parents, which proves 
their unfitness for propagation under certain conditions. The word 
■'brothers," conveys a sameness of origin, purpose and capability 



Is this a Civilized Age? 59 

in the affairs of life, yet one may be brilliant in intellect and the 
other an idot; one an Adonis and the other a dwarf. 

There is nothing more responsive to care and attention than the 
human intellect. The mortal body is merely the temporary abiding 
place of the journeying spirit or intelligence — like the coffin-bound 
chrysalis — and the self-respect, contentment and happiness of earth 
life depend upon the kind of a house we give the spirit to live in. No 
one would select a mud hovel, when he could live in a palace, and the 
intelligence which has only imperfect organs through which to oper- 
ate, like a shattered instrument, cannot produce harmonious re- 
sults. 

The moral idiot, like the mental idiot can never become a noble, 
responsible man, for the quality of the body, as well as the mind de- 
termines the usefulness of a human being. No sane person would 
consult an idiot on important affairs, yet the idiot often gets better 
care from our government than the sane, intelligent child, under our 
barbarous laws which rob the useful for the irresponsible. 

The 60th U. S. Congress, and last of President Roosevelt's 
second term, appropriated $1,070,000,000 largely for battleships; 
increased army and navy expenditures; increased pensions, etc., but 
not one dollar for the children of the nation; not one dollar for the 
patriotic care of our future men and women. A few millions devoted 
to these children to-day, might do away with the barbarity of war- 
fare fifty years hence. 



Chapter VI, 



The %oosevelt-Taft Administration 



April 18, 1898, both houses of Congress passed the following 
resolutions: 

'^First: That the people of the Island of Cuba are and of a 
right ought to be free and independent. 

^'Second: That it is the duty of the United States to demand 
that the government of Spain at once relinquish its authority and 
government in the Islands of Cuba and withdraw its land and^naval 
forces from Cuba and Cuban waters. 

"Third: That the President of the United States be, and hereby 
IS, directed and empowered to use the entire land and naval forces 
of the United States, and to call into the actual service of the United 
States the mihtia of the several States, to such extent as may be 
necessary to carry these resolutions into effect." 

The Jesuit politicians knew if Cuba became a free government, 
their expulsion from the Islands would follow, and President Mc- 
Kinley was ''removed'' by a Romish anarchist. 

President Roosevelt survives; the object of adoration of the Cor- 
poration of Rome— but what has become of the freedom of Cuba? 

There is no rest; there is no peace in Cuba, and the Americans 
are treated to censored reports through which occasionally filters: 
''The Cubans are dissatisfied with the high prices Governor Magoon 
is paying for church property.'' Or: ''It will be a long time before 
Cuba will be capable of self-government." 

Between the tax of the king of Spain and the church, the Cor- 
poration of Rome, upon every conceivable commodity of life, the 
Cubans were reduced to palm leaf huts, like Indian wick-i-ups; a 
single cotton garment to cover their nakedness, and plantains for 



The Roosevelt-Taft Administration 61 

food; while children lived to be five, six and even ten years of age 
without ever having had a garment of any kind. The country was 
studded with monasteries and convents full of ignorant, idle monks 
and nuns whom they had to sustain. They were too poor to get 
married for the priest's fee is always prohibitive to the poor. They 
were often so poor that no priest would bury them. There was no 
pretense at learning, and when a priest or monk or friar walked the 
street, which some of them did continually in their long robes, every 
man, woman and child w^as expected to prostrate themselves in the 
dust, like Hindoo pariahs; make the sign of the cross and beg for a 
blessing. 

Fat, well fed monks and friars were continually stalking about 
with imperious dignity mumbling in Latin, which could not be under- 
stood. They might, if the object was of particular value, slightly 
raise a hand, but their eyes never deigned to turn toward the worms 
at their feet, unless they chanced to light upon a pretty woman — - 
wife or daughter, whom they at once coveted, and if the husband or 
father refused to surrender her, he was made an example to the rest 
of the slaves. 

The men learned of the struggles of Mexico from under just such 
cruel conditions, andlheir souls were fired by the first spark of civili- 
zation— THE SANCTITY OF HOMES— and they fought with the 
desperation of despair for the freedom which they had almost gained, 
when the Roosevelt administration drove them back, at the mouth 
of the cannon, under the halters of monks, friars and Jesuits. 

As early as 1835, Santa Anna, the Mexican Dictator under the 
Church party, who kept Mexico in a state of insurrection and bloody 
wars for a quarter of a century, escaped to Cuba, whei'e he told of the 
uprisings of the people of Mexico, the overthrow of the monarchy and 
the establishment of a republic. The people of the United States 
also taught them lessons in Republicanism, and nothing will satisfy 
them but the independence which President McKinley guaranteed. 

The bloody horrors in Cuba and the awful distress of the Cubans, 
in 1897, touched every humane and liberty-loving heart. Com- 
mittees were formed in the large cities and towns in the United States 
to express sympathy and collect money for the relief of Cuba. The 
writer headed one such organization, and in our public talks we were 
instructed to plead with all the sympathy we chose, but the subject 
of religion was not to be mentioned, as Roman priests were giving 
to the fund and we might hurt their feelings. That our good work 



62 The Question of Romanism 

should be under any kind of censorship, and particularly of the 
Romish church, which had reduced the wretched Cubans to their in- 
human condition, induced me to make inquiry as to what became of 
our subscriptions. I found that there was a professional "promoter" 
managing the entire affair, and all the money was forwarded to the 
Cuban Junta in New York, of which Thomas Estrada Palma was the 
head. This corporation invested our charity money in Cuban 
bonds — neiv Cuban bonds — which could only mature after the con- 
quest of the Islands, and the result developed: Thomas Estrada 
Palma, first governor of Cuba's new masters. 

The management of Governor Palma proved unsatisfactory to 
the Jesuits and they had him recalled, and Mr. Magoon, who had 
loomed out of the West as a full-fledged diplomat, satisfactory to 
President Roosevelt, Mr. Taft and the Jesuits, is managing the pope's 
government in Cuba. If a Cuban dares to mention a Republic, he 
is regarded. as a rebel and in danger of being shot; yet the American 
army has no more business in Cuba than it has in England. 

What of the Philij)pine Islands? 

They are absolutely under Jesuit dictatorship, enforced by a 
standing army of American soldiers. 

American citizens were not consulted with regard to their newly 
acquired possessions, for which they had paid with the lives of their 
fellow citizens and in millions of money; and must continue to pay 
millions yearly, as long as the Roosevelt-Taft policy is in force. The\' 
were not permitted to read the report of the Filipinos, as re(5orded 
in the interviews appearing in the United States document, No. 190, 
headed '^Church Lands in the Philippines: Report of the Taft Com- 
mission, signed: William McKinley." 

The department of the Corporation of the Church of Rome, 
known as the ''Congregation of the Index," whose duty it is to keep 
the world in ignorance, by destroying everything printed that will 
throw light upon their political intrigues at Washington, has, for 
years had a professed Jesuit in charge of the government printing 
department, through whom the American people get only such 
information as suits the Jesuits. 

The ''Report of the Taft Commission" was printed to be distrib- 
uted free to the people, but only in the Library of Congress, from 
which the index of this book gives a correct copy, can it be found. 

President Roosevelt knows the contents — Mr. Taft knows — and 



The Roosevelt-Taft Administration 63 

THE JESUITS KNOW! 

The history of the monks and friars for ignorance, drunkenness, 
licentiousness, brutaUty and greed is the same all over the world. 
The Philippine war, like the Revolution in France; the horrors of 
Italy; the years of bloody struggle in Mexico and the awful butcheries 
of Cuba, were to exterminate these parisites who were consuming 
the people and their substance. These ''holy" vampires taxed every- 
thing, down to their lumbering cart wheels, and if they did not or 
could not pay grave tax, their dead were exhumed and burnt ! 

No thinking i)erson can read the report of this "Taft Commis- 
sion" without feeling that the better class of the Filipinos know what 
they want and will not rest until they get what Mexico, Guatemala, 
France and Italy achieved; the right to protect their homes from 
the lecherous degenerates of the pope's un-holy orders. 

It is justly argued that these Islanders are not capable of self- 
government. Neither was Mexico when it threw off the Jesuits and 
the religious orders, but to-day it is a model for young Republics. 
Neither were the colored slaves when they were dumped full fledged 
law-makers into the Republic of the United States. Neither are the 
millions of illiterates who are yearly imported to become law-making 
citizens, before they can speak our language. 

According to Mr. Taft's recent report, it will require generations 
before the Filipinos will be capable of independency. From which 
it is to be inferred that the farce of an '^American Protectorate^' 
under Jesuits, is to be kept up indefinitely, at a yearly expense of 
many millions to the tax-payers of the United States, unless the 
Roosevelt-Taft- Jesuit forces are removed. 

If France, instead of helping the Thirteen Colonies toward self- 
government, had placed a Jesuit governor over them, who represented 
a papal despotism, the history of the United States would be recorded 
with Mexico, Peru and Equador. 

The cry for liberty of the Cubans and the Filipinos, has been 
stifled by criminal politiciansl 

MR. TAFT HAS PROVED TRAITOR TO THE FILIPINOS. 

That they know their enemies was proven by an unconfirmed 
report, "started by a priest," that there was an attempt to assassi- 
nate Mr. Taft with a bomb, while attending a "reception at the Jesuit 
college," on his recent visit to the Islands. 



64 The Question of Romanism 

Mr. Taft, as representative of the American people, listened to 
the most inhuman and monstrous tales of outrages ever perpetrated 
by savages upon a long suffering people, who accepted the conquest 
of their Islands by the United States, as a deliverance from bondage. 

He heard husbands and fathers tell; if they had handsome wives 
or daughters and a ''holy" priest, ''holy" monk or "holy" friar took 
a fancy for them and they were not given to them, their natural pro- 
tectors were gotten out of the way; either by "imprisonment, depor- 
tation or murder V These outraged men even in their helplessness, 
would not accept peace upon any conditions unless the Spanish 
Friars were sent from the Islands. 

Mr. Taft consulted Mr. Roosevelt, and as the result has proven, 
the Jesuits, who control every department at Washington. Then 
Mr. Roosevelt sent Mr. Taft to Rome to consult the pope; a super- 
annuated Dominican friar, now head of the Inquisition and masquer- 
ading as God, under the name of Pius X. 

It was not necessary to consult the pope because the Jesuits con- 
trol hierarchial affairs. It was a trick to give importance to Pius 
X., whose power in Romish countries is dead. It was a theatrical 
coup by which the President of the United States was made to play 
cats-paw to revive the divine right of popes, which the intelligence 
of the age repudiates. 

Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft consulted the pope — a religious 
fanatic, who foreswore every supreme right to existence, even man- 
hood, to pass his life in monasteries as a professional beggar. The 
pope — a slave of a system — effete — through its brainless change- 
lessness; that makes its head, who claims to be God's representative 
on earth, as ignorant of freedom and voluntary thought or action 
as a well trained horse under harness; whose relation to the world is 
as automatic and expressionless as a spoke in a wheel of the car of the 
Juggernaut. He is merely the temporary figurehead of the Ecclesias- 
tical-Political Corporation of Rome. Yet Mr. Taft, as Secretary of 
the United States and aspirant for the Presidency of the Republic, 
visited his "Holiness;" knelt for his blessing and kissed the jeweled 
ring on his finger or his foot, as both are proper form. Mr. Taft had 
evidently not read up on papal blessings, or had forgotten that the 
Spanish Armada was blessed by the pope and sprinkled fore and aft 
with "holy water" when it started to conquer England, and a tempest 
swept the entire Armada to the bottom of the sea. Pius IX. blessed 
the Southern Confederacy and it failed. He blessed Maximillian and 



The Roosevelt-Taft Administration 65 

Charlotte when he sent them to conquer Mexico, and MaxnnilUan 
was shot and Charlotte went mad. He blessed Napoleon and Eu- 
genie, when that wily Jesuit woman helped him to force the war 
between Germany and France, and not only the empire of Napoleon, 
but all the pope's temporary power was wiped from the earth. 

Mr. Taft agreed to pay this man, Joseph Sarto, who swore an 
oath of perpetual poverty in the order of Dominican friars, $7,000,- 
000 for the lands which his order and similar ones had obtained from 
the Filipinos through all kinds of fraud. 

Then the great diplomat, Mr. Taft, temporized with the Filipinos. 
As they had refused peace on any terms unless the Spanish friars 
were banished from the islands, he agreed to send them away and 
substitute American friars. Will Mr. Taft tell the American people 
where he found the Ar}ierican Friars'^ 

The L^nited States has so far been saved the shame of creating 
such abnormal degenerates, although the Corporation of Rome, ac- 
cording to its ''Official Directory of 1908," has fifty-six different or- 
ders of monks, friars, Jesuits and Brothers in the Republic. The 
same Motkerhouses; the same Director Generals; the same vo^^s of 
''poverty, chastity and obedience" control the friars all over the 
A\'orld, the difference"in their conduct being influenced by the degree 
of civilization, of the countries in which they live, and they never 
elevate their environments. Their foreign "Directors" are the real 
ovners of all the property they acquire; the bankers who receive all 
the money they accumulate; and who, in turn, report to the hierarchy. 

Ignorance is not admissable in law as extenuation for crime, and 
a statesman who is ignorant of the past as well as present history of 
the countries and powers Avith which he has to deal, must be held as 
guilty for treasonable ignorance as treasonable intent. That the 
present generation, as a rule, knows little of Romanism and less about 
Jesuitism, is due to the criminal negligence of statesmen of the past, 
who permitted all school books to pass through the hands of those 
interested in suppressing historical facts. 

The time has come in the evolution of the human family, to 
throw off the pagan abominations of men-gods, and special privileges 
to idle, ignorant, fanatical men and women who label themselves 
"holy", to live off the labors of others. All progressive Romish 
countries have abohshed "religious orders," and through universal 
education, are dropping away from popery with its childish fables, 
impossible miracles and divine right to kill all who differ from it. 



66 The Question of Romanism 

Yet— 

Shades of George Washington and Abraham Liyicolnl 

The United States has a President in this twentieth century who 
not only sent his Secretary of State to Rome to consult the head of 
the ''Holy Inquisition/' at a cost of $7,000,000, but like the political 
tool of the Jesuits in France, Napoleon III, who kept a standing army 
of twenty thousand French soldiers in Rome to force the Italian 
Patriots under the slavish dominion of Pius IX, the Roosevelt-Taft 
politicians have a standing army of American soldiers in Cuba and 
the Philippines to force those people under the servile dominion of 
Pius X. 

A few pages from Gibbon, Hume, Macauley, or other reliable 
historians, would inform our eminent statesmen that Romanism is 
an ''incorporated system of ecclesiastical robbery," whose ramifica- 
tions permeate every conceivable department of public and private 
life; whose entire working system is an insolent violation of every 
law of our Republic. The vow of poverty taken by its bigoted de- 
votees plays upon the charity of the world to the extent of robbing 
the poor, and their vow of celibacy prevents legitimate heirs from 
diverting ecclesiastical wealth from the corporation. It forces con- 
tributions under business pressure, which means boycott, through its 
thousands of begging nuns. Its confessional is a living stream of 
wealth, in comparison with which the golcondas of the world have 
been as baubles; wherein, priests become accessory to crimes by sell- 
ing remittances for crime and indulgences to commit premeditated 
crimes. Their "holy orders" furnish liquors for saloons, where the 
"holy sisters" glide in and out for their share of the blood money of 
the poor, while the priests collect the "body-money" of their courte- 
sans! 

Nothing but the unprecedented prosperity of the United States 
has made it possible to sustain this government within, 3^et apart 
from the government of the country. 

The Roman church properties are vested in the cardinals and 
bishops, and it is estimated that each one holds many millions, of 
which the merest fraction is taxed or consists of ecclesiastical struc- 
tures. Such a thing as a pope or bishop endowing an institution of 
any kind for the betterment of the human family is not recorded in 
history. Their poor and helpless; their criminals and degenerates 
are made the mediums for the accumulation of vast wealth which is 



The Rooseve!t-Taft Administration 67 

not accounted for, but is principally devoted to the luxurious, li- 
centious, selfish uses of the unmarried hierarchy, and political in- 
trigues. Their own public institutions are always of the highest 
price and their work is all done by slave labor. 

The valuable lands held by the friars in the Philippines should 
and would have been devoted to the Filipinos for the upbuilding of 
their government, instead of making them a tax upon the American 
people, if Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft had respected the ''LAWS OF 
NATIONS" which have been enforced in every Romish country under 
the sun. Instead, they created a new precedent and wrote the black- 
est pages of the history of the Republic, b}^ legalizing the accumula- 
tion of vast estates by religious fanatics through charity or sub- 
scriptions for impossible interests in heaven, hell and purgatory. 

There is probably no higher authority on the Laws of Nations 
than Emerich Vattel of Switzerland, and no commentator on Eng- 
lish law superior to Sir William Blackstone. Both of these jurists 
law down rules which vindicate the actions of nations with regard to 
the appropriation of vast ecclesiastical property. Blackstone says: 

"The priests would have engulfed all the real estate in England. 
It took centuries to protect and perfect the nation against their 
rapacity and schemes to avoid the statutes." 

And Vattel covers the whole question rising out of this condi- 
tion of affairs in the following rule: 

"Far from the goods of the church being exempt because they 
are consecrated to God, it is for that very reason that they should be 
the first taken for the welfare of the State. There is nothing more 
agreeable to the common father of men than to preserve a nation 
from destruction. As God has no need of property, the consecration 
of goods to him is their devotion to such purposes as are pleasant to 
him. Besides, the property of the church, by the confession of the 
clergy themselves, is chiefly destined for the poor; and when the State 
is in want, it is, doubtless, the first pauper and the worthiest of suc- 
cor." 

Ever}' country conquered by Romish kings was given over to 
the control of the church, and one of the first acts of the church of 
Rome, after Spiain conquered Mexico, was to send Dominican and 
Franciscan friars to introduce branches of the Holy Inquisition in 
the cities of Mexico and Pueblo, for the supression of all dissent and 
the punishment of heresy. Under the weight of this Romish des- 
potism^ taxed by king and church, this conquered race began its new* 
life without education; on the most scantv subsistence; half naked; 



68 The Question of Romanism 

not even owning the miserable huts of a single room, which sheltered 
them, and for three hundred years ranked among the most ignorant, 
criminal and hopeless of the human race. No peon or laborer, of 
one hacienda was at liberty to transfer himself to another without 
the written permission of his employer, if he owed him the amount 
of twenty dollars, and the estate owners took good care to keep them 
in debt to that extent. Many of these poor wretches were formally 
reduced to absolute slavery and some were even branded with the 
owner's initials, with a red-hot iron, women as well as men! This is 
a fair sample of all the Spanish-American countries which w^ere os- 
tensibly owned by the king of Spain, but were absolutely under the 
control of the ^^Holy" Corporation of Rome. 

When these creatures who were reduced to a condition lower 
than animals, revolted, they hung the fat monks and friars in the 
market places like cattle, and they never stopped 'until every monk, 
friar, nun, sister, and Jesuit was driven from Mexico and every piece 
of church property was given l.^cck to tlve nation for the people. 

Cuba and the Phillippines were, if possible, reduced to greater 
degradation, and the first act of revolt that was flashed across the 
wires was; that Filipinos had covered five or six monks and friars 
with coal oil and burnt them alive. Yet, Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Taft 
decided that they must keep the monks, friars and Jesuits! 

In France, at the time of the Fench Revolution, the annual 
revenues of the church were over $80,000,000.. After the Revolution 
they were reduced to $7,000,000. Today, they are nothing! The 
French peasantry had been reduced to starving slaA^es before they 
revolted. Children were found in graveyards knawing the bones 
of the dead, while the nobles, priests and nuns lived in affluent 
luxury, the Church owning one-third of the entire country, untaxed! 

Is it any wonder that the starving masses tore down the mon- 
asteries and hanged or guillotined over thirty^ thousand monks and , 
nuns, and confiscated their illegally converted lands. 

Is it any wonder that these starving, downtrodden slaves of the 
church of Rome robbed the altars and the shrines; tore down the 
images of the saints and Virgin Mary and had the church bells melted 
into weapons of war. 

Is it any wonder that the guillotine replaced the cross and be- 
came to them the ''holy guillotine" — : That every emblem of religion, 
ancient and modern was demolished, and Notre Dame, the oldest 
and most famous cathedral in Paris, was converted into a temple of 



The Roosevelt-Taft Administration 69 

Reason, with the ensignia — "France has abandoned inanimate idols 
for reason, that animated image, the master piece of nature." 

The pope owned almost one-third of all England at the time of 
Henry VIII., and his revenues exceeded those of the crown, when the 
king confiscated his properties; pensioned the old members of the 
orders, and sent the young ones out to work for a living. 

In 1834, Portugal, banished 18,000 monks and nuns whose es- 
tates yielded $5,000,000 yearly; far in excess of those of the crown. 

Spain has been forced to banish them several times, through their 
insatiable greed and tremendous holdings of untaxed lands which 
reduced the nation to penury. 

In Mexico, in 1857, the clergy held by ownership or mortgages, 
one-third of all the valuable land. One half of the city of Mexico is 
said to have consisted of cathedrals, churches, monasteries, convents 
and other ecclesiastical structures. After the dethronement of Max- 
imihan, in 1867, all religious orders of monks and nuns were sup- 
pressed and all church property was confiscated and used for the 
building up of the country. The magnificent Jesuit college is now 
the academy of sciences. 

The law of 1867 demanded the nationalization of $300,000,000 
of property held by the clergy, from which and other sources, the 
church derived an annual income of not less than $20,000,000." 

Today, the Romish church does not, legally, own one foot of 
ground in Mexico. The government owns the churches which are 
leased to the clergy for ninety-nine years. The monasteries and 
nunneries with their underground passages; their torture cells; their 
dungeons of human bones and inhuman depravity, were appropriated 
by the government for the establishment of public schools, and 
parochial schools were abolished. 

"From the Franciscan monastery, alone, in the city of Mexico, 
over $20,000,000 in coin were taken — ," money wrung from the starv- 
ing illiterates of Mexico by a corporation labeled "religion!" Money 
obtained under false pretenses by men sworn to fives of po^'erty! 
By "holy" m.en who frightened the poor wretches by telling them 
they had offended the "holy father" at Rome, by not giving enough 
to the "holy mother church," and he was going to darken the sun 
or moon, according to the announcement of an eclipse, and this was 
merely to be a gentle reminder of what might happen if they did not 
give all they had to the church. 

"In 1892, the Mexican government excavated the foundation 
of the convent of the Conception, in the City of Mexico, to recover 



^^ The Question of Romanism 

the treasure buried there by the nuns who hastily abandoned the 
^o^^Ln'V 1^1 overthrow of the clerical— church party. In 1861 
5th27,OUO had been found m an alcove: A few years later $22 000 
were found m the tower: Later, $300,000, in gold coin was found 
in iron kettles and boxes, together with a hfe-sized figure of the Vir- 
gin Mary, whose crown of jewels was valued at $500,000 besides a 
number of precious stones! .It was estimated that $20,000,000 had 
been concealed m this building— by women sworn to lives of poverty!'' 
A traveler in Mexico wrote: 

'an the cathedral of Pueblo hangs a massive chandeher of gold 
and silver which weighs several tons. On the right of the altar 
stands a carved figure of the Virgin dressed in richlv embossed satin 
embroidered by nuns. Around her neck is suspended a string of 
pearls of priceless value; a coronet of gold encircles her brow and her 
waist is bound by a zone of pure diamonds and other precious stones 

The candelabra in the cathedral are of silver and gold and the host 

the recepticle for the sacrament — is one mass, of precious jewels 
There is a railing made of gold and silver, on which stands a figure 
of the Virgin, with three petticoats, one of pearls, one of emeralds 
and the third of diamonds. This figure is valued at $3,000,000." 
And all this idolatrous display- this treason to God, while the 
illiterate people were naked and starving. 

^ Freed from the yoke of the clerical party— the same Jesuit 
traitors and enemies of civilization and progress who are keeping 
the devil's pot boiling all over the United States— Mexico has taken 
her stand with the advanced Republics of the world. Although it 
has not the reputation of being a great seat of learning, nor an ob- 
ject lesson for such a wonderful Republic as the United States, it 
might be well for some of our eminent statesmen, instead of going to 
Rome to consult the pope, whose system, "has not changed for 1000 
years;" to go to Mexico and learn how to keep away from Rome. 
We also have a Constitution, which seems to have passed into fable, 
but might be revived by studying Statesnmnshi'p in Mexico, and the 
methods of enforcing the ''Laws of Reform'' in that country. 

Is our boasted freedom a veneered lie? Must we give the palm 
of Liberty to France, Mexico, Italy and Guatemala? 

Laius of Reform of Mexico. 
The following laws established in 1857 are rigidly enforced: 
1. ''Complete separation of Church and State." 
' ' ?■ a"^^^ ^^^^ exercises of religious services." 

3. "The State will give no recognition to anv religious festi- 
vals, save the Sabbath as a day of rest." 



The Roosevelt-Taft Administration 71 

4. ''Religious services are to be held only within the place of 
worship." 

5. ''Clerical vestments are forbidden on the streets." 

6. "Rehgious processions are forbidden." 

7. "The use of church bells is restricted to calling the people 
to religious work." 

8. "Pulpit discourses advising . disobedience to the law or 
injury to any one are strictly forbidden." 

9. "Gifts of real estate to religious institutions are illegal 
with the sole exception of edifices designed exclusively to the pur- 
poses of the institution." 

10. "The State does not recognize monastic orders or permit 
their establishment." 

11. "The association of Sisters of Charity are suppressed in 
the Repubhc, because they are the female Jesuits and not a religious 
order." 

13. "Marriage is a civil contract and is to be duly registered. 
The religious service may be added." 

14. "Education in the public schools is free and compulsory." 
HANG YOUR HEADS IN SHAME, STATESMEN OF THE 

GREAT UNITED STATES, when you read the fifteenth Law of 
Reform of the Republic of Mexico! 

"NO ONE CAN SIGN AWAY THEIR LIBERTY BY CONTRACT 
OR RELIGIOUS VOW !" 

November, 1906, the Boston papers published the following: 

" Youngest Nun takes the Veil.'' 

"The youngest nun in the world has taken the veil here, at the 
age of fifteen years, by special dispensation. She is Aurora, daughter 
of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Clement, of Lowell, and she is now known as 
Sister Augustine." 

Who granted "special dispensation" to this abnormal child to 
imprison herself for life, when the Constitution distinctly says, there 
shall be "neither slavery nor voluntary servitude.'' 

THE POPE, HIMSELF, CANNOT MAKE A MONK OR NUN 
IN ITALY. 

^ ^ ^ ■:^ ^i ^:. ;;^ 

Americans have little respect for Spain, since the Great Battle 
at Manilla, when they took her wonderful battleships, and found them 
old hulks that could not fire a gun. Bullies always despise the small 
things they thrash, but Americans must take off their hats to Spain 
in reading her "Laius of Associations'^ enacted in 1906. Spain is not 



The Question of Romanism 

getting rid of the things which make battleships necessary 
"Laws of Associations" of Spain. 
.u,hc,l,.,i„,tS.™f." "■■" ^' "■«•'""'»'' 'i'ta. .1.. 

living pers^so'rbv \° ?''^'°? "'"'^''^ °^ '*°"'^*^«"' *° orders by 
formilirp'fe^ferf 7 *^^*^"*^"t«' ™- through intermediaries arl 

pay the SltZ::-''' ^'^-"^^^"^ ''^ *-^« - -dustries shall 

establLed.^"'"'"*"" '°'' *'''' di^^ol^'"- of religious orders shall be 

orders' reml'n: Infol'"''' ''''°^^™'"^- ^'^^ -g-tration of rehgious 

As the slave men and women of the "religious orders" are the 

disband them, when suppressed, but move them from one countrv 
to another While President Roosevelt and Mr. Taft .^le hvs"e,? 
cany agita mg war with Japan, the Jesuits, who were play^f e 
tune to which they were dancing-introduced into the Urii ed 
f£\Zl^' to the "Official Roman Catholic Direetorie" 2 
1904, and 1908-within four years-ten corporations of "religious 

Of the""h ";^'^*"; *° '''' '^''^-"^ ^^^'^^'y - the cou^^ 
ters of MeTv '; ". "'/°;''"'"*' corporations of women, theSis- 
ters of Meicy, alone, founded m 1843 by seven Sisters from Carlow 
Ireland and whose Motherhouse is inDublin.have several hundred 
mstitutions m this Republic and are the most extensive educators 
^.hose products outnumber all others in criminals, outcasts drunk-' 
ards and squallid proverty. 



The Roosevelt-Taft Administration 73 

Someone is responsible for these professio7ial beggars, who vio- 
lated the immigration laws, and it is time for Americans to follow 
the example of the Japanese in their bursting of the great Russian 
huhhle, and puncture the Romish huhhle; turn the limehght on the 
farcical religious abominations of this civilized age, and study the 
question of Romanism. 



Chapter VII. 



The ^oman Hierarchy 



The world is constantly receiving messages, instructions and 
commands from the Pope and the Roman Hierarchy, which are ac- 
cepted as the utterances of intellectual and political giants, while in 
reality they are only scare-crows of the Jesuits which serve their pur- 
pose in the political arena as effectually as the stuffed men in the 
sheepfold keep away the sneaking, cowardly coyotes. What is this 
arrogant, boastful corporation, that having blighted the old world, 
comes creeping over our young country, with the same withering 
hand. 

''The Official Catholic Directory, 1908," answers this question, 
and also demonstrates the checkerboard exactness with which the 
government of the ''Italian Corporation of Rome" is carried on with- 
in the government of the United States; absolutely independent of 
it, and in defiance of the Constitution and all civil laws. 

Hierarchy of the Catholic Church 

"The Catholic Hierarchy or the governing body of the Catholic 
Church consists of His Holiness, the Supreme Pontiff, assisted by the 
Sacred College of Cardinals, and by several Sacred Congregations, or 
permanent ecclesiastical committees, of which the Cardinals are the 
chief members; by the Patriarchs. Archbishops and Bishops; by the 
Apostolic Delegates, Vicars and Prefects, and by certain Abbots and 
other Prelates. 

HIS HOLINESS THE POPE 
"Bishop of Rome and Vicar of Jesus Christ, 
Successor of St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles, 
Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, 



The Roman Hierarchy 75 

Patriarch of the West, Primate of Italy, 

Archbishop and MetropoUtan of the Roman Province, 

Sovereign of the Temporal Dominions of the 

HOLY ROMAN CHURCH. 

Pope Pius X., 

JOSEPH SARTO, 

SUPREME PONTIFF NOW GLORIOUSLY REIGNING, 

''The two hundred and fifty-eighth successor of St. Peter, was 
born in Riese, in the diocese of Treviso, June 2, 1835; created and 
proclaimed Cardinal and Patriarch of Venice, June 15, 1893; elected 
Pope August 4, crowned Aug. 9, 1903. 

''His Holiness retains the Prefectship of the Congregation of the 
Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition or Holy Office, of the Con- 
sistorial Congregation, of the Apostolic Visitation, of the Pontiffical 
conimission ^ad reconciliationem dissidentum cuvi ecclesia;' the Pre- 
fectorship of the Church and Chapter of SS. Celsus and Julianus, 
of the whole order of St. Benedict, of the order of friars, Minor, of the 
Archconfraternities of the Via Crusis, of the Lovers of Christ and 
Mary, of the Sacred Stigmata of St. Francis, of the order of Preachers. 

" The Sacred College of Cardinals 

"The Cardinals, when duly constituted and proclaimed, form 
the Supreme Council or Senate, of the Church. They are advisers of 
the Supreme Pontiff, and at the death of the Pontiff they elect his 
successor. 

"There are three orders of Cardinals; Cardinal-Bishops, Cardinal- 
Priests and Cardinal-Deacons; but these orders are distinct from 
those of the Hierarchy; with very few exceptions the Cardinal- 
Priests are Archbishops or Bishops, and the Cardinal-Deacons are 
generally Priests. The Sacred College of Cardinals, when complete, 
consists of seventy members — six Cardinal-Bishops, 50 Cardinal- 
Priests and 14 Cardinal-Deacons. 

"The Cardinal-Bishops occupy the Suburban Sees of Rome 
which are Osita and Velletri, Porto and Santa Ruflna, Alhano, Tras- 
cati, Palestrina, and Sabina . The Cardinal-Priests take their title from 
their 'Titular Churches' to w-hich they are appointed; the Cardinal- 
Deacons are appointed to other Churches called 'Deaconies.' The 
first Cardinal Bishop is Dean; the first Cardinal Priest is First Priest; 
and the second Cardinal Deacon is First Deacon of the Sacred Col- 
lege. The Dean has the right of consecrating, and the Frist Deacon 
the right of proclaiming and cro waning a new Pope. On the death 
of the Pontiff, the Cardinal Camerlengo has the administration of 
affairs of the Holy See. 

"The Creation of a Cardinal sometimes precedes, eA-en by several 
years, the 'publication and proclamation.' The Cardinal is then 
said to be 'reserved in Petto,' and when proclaimed, he takes prece- 
dence according to date of creation." 



76 The Question of Romanism 

The Roman Hierarchy was formulated after the Sanhedrim of 
the Jews, which consists of seventy Rabbis under a chief Rabbi, who 
constitute the final court of appeal in all things appertaining to the 
synagogues. The Roman Hierarchy consists of seventy Cardinals 
under a chief Cardinal, or Bishop or Pope; who constitute the high- 
est court of appeal in all things appertaining to the Romish church. 

The members of the Jewish Sanhedrim are married men, who 
live in private homes with their families, while the members of the 
Roman Hierarchy are professed celibates who live in Rome and 
its suburbs, in the most stately palaces in the world; with all the 
voluptuous luxury that bachelor life implies. The residence of the 
pope is the Vatican. It consists of eleven hundred rooms, and ac- 
cording to the latest statistics, the pope had five hundred retainers 
of Avhom one-third w^ere women. 

The Jewish Sanhedrim is entirely a religious body and its du- 
ties cease in the Synagogues, while the Roman Hierarchy is divided 
into an active, worldly working force which penetrates every depart- 
ment of governmental,social and religious life in all parts of the world. 
This working force is modeled after the Buddhists, and is divided 
into sections, which, like the Buddhists, are absolutely material; wor- 
shiping idols, praying to saints and buying all spiritual favors. Like 
the Buddhists, also, these sections are grades of slavery — masters 
and servants — from the supreme pontiff and the princes of the 
church, to the mendicant friars, begging nuns, and kitchen slaves, 
the lay-brothers and lay-sisters. 

This slave system was introduced by the Brahmin priests over 
six thousand years ago, and has reduced the entire Oriental world 
to a mass of expressionless, ambitionless humanity, changeless be- 
yond the possibility of change, even in their attire. The same 
blighting process follows the Romianists in every country where they 
gain ascendency. Their method of ^'subjugation of the intellect" 
is mental decay, for which there is no remedy. A Buddhist priest 
explained the lowest section of Orientalism as "nothing but heart.'' 
By which he meant a physical being without thought or voluntary 
action, the duplicates of which we have in the illiterate slaves in the 
cellars of the Corporations of Rome, in every city in the United 
States. 

The power of the hierarchy consists in the compactness and unity 
of the whole system. The animating breath of Romanism is its 
corporate body of priests, bishops and archbishops; its five sections 



The Roman Hierarchy 77 

of religious orders; monks, clerks regular, military, canons regular 
and friars, which altogether constitute its unmarried hierarch}^; 
each one of whom by his vo^^■ of celibacy is dissociated from every 
divinely inspired domestie tie — every natural family bond and 
affection — and all are bound by one vow which unites them as one 
mass, in which no individual person has any moral existence apart 
from the whole body. Romanism's formidable power is, therefore, 
concentrated in this unity of object; this one individual aim and un- 
ited will of thousands of men all over the world and occupying every 
rank, from the highest cardinal to ihe lowest village priest or begging 
monk. No matter what their abilities, views or feelings on other 
points, all are agreed on this one, into which they cast their strength — 
the power of the church. 

Again, every Roman Catholic in the world, rich or poor, edu- 
cated or ignorant — no matter what his position in life, forms a part 
and parcel of this great body, the church, which has absorbed him 
into its system as the mountain glacier absorbs every particle of ice 
into its body; so that each particle can move only as the mass moves 
and must move with it. Thus it is that Romanists become integral 
parts of their church system, which will not suffer them to act or 
even speak or think independently of it. It controls their every 
thought and they dare not resist, under the penalty of incurring 
anathema and excommunication, which means to them eternal 
damnation. Consequently the Romanist has no mind, no will, no 
power or liberty of his own. He is a member of an organized body 
and can no more act independently of that body than an arm dis- 
severed from the human body. It is the unity, order and compact- 
ness of this entire mass throughout the earth, which has made Ro- 
manism so formidable a power. It is a vast arm}^ under one head 
awaiting orders to move, and when it had the power to move unre- 
strained, history tells us, it moved with the soulless, merciless force 
of all material things. It is the direct enemy of all individual re- 
sponsibility, mental progress and spiritual unfoldment. It is the 
master-piece of slavery. 

According to the Official Directory, 1908, the hierarchj con- 
sists of only sixty-one members, instead of seventy, of whom tlie 
oldest is ninety-seven years old, and there are twent5^-one past 
seventy-five. 

The world has established a limit of mental vigor for men who, 
by friction with the conflicts of life keep actively abreast with the 



78 The Question of Romanism 

developments of the age, according to which, these superannuated, 
buried ahve men of unnatural and indolent existences must be men- 
tally impotent. They are spiritual Rip van Winkles who never can 
wake up, because their minds were sealed in infancy. 

The Roman Hierarchy, before whom the world has quailed for 
a thousand years, is reduced to a phantom band of old men, who are 
mentally as dead and gone forever, as yesterday. They were born 
under the darkest mental and moral conditions of Italy, when the 
scientific world lay paralized under sacerdotalism. They were given 
to the church by illiterate, fanatical parents, just as pagan Hindoos 
appease their gods by sacrificial offerings of children. They were 
reared in monasteries where a newspaper, magazine, scientific work 
or even the Bible was not permitted to enter. They have passed 
their lives in routine work as changeless and monotonous as the old 
tinie wood-sawing machine, wherein the horse w^earily tramped, day 
after day, over the revolving wheel, unable to stop himself or the 
machine. When they were born there were no steamboats, no 
railroads, or telegraphs — electricity, gas, coal oil or any kind of 
machinery. 

While they were telling their beads, science slipped from their 
chains like Hope from Pandora's box. The world got away from 
them and they cannot realize that it is gone from them forever. They 
cannot understand that this is an age of miracles, in comparison with 
which the impossible lives of their unlettered saints merely dem- 
onstrate their profound ignorance. They cannot understand 
that science — the thing, which for centuries, their church caged, 
persecuted and slaughtered because it feared it with a deadly fear — 
has given to the world new interpretations of old facts, which are 
doing away with men-gods. 

The pope does not dare to take one step forw^ard in the great 
march of progress which is sweeping over the earth. He does not 
dare to utter or promulgate one w^ord or dogma apart from the pro- 
scribed laws of the dark ages of which he is the sworn slave, or he 
will come under his own anathema. He will become a heretic, and 
must die! To live, he must perpetuate the doctrines of his infalli- 
ble — unchangable church. He must hold fast to the laws of his pre- 
decessors. He must keep the Inquisition going, because of the 
bull, "In Caena Domini/' which declares the malicious hatred of 
Rome for all Protestants and dissenters. This bull was first pub- 
lished by Gregory XII., in 1411; was renewed with additions by 



The Roman Hierarchy 79 

Pius v., in 1566, under the above name and again, under the same 
name by Urban VIII., in 1627; and finally as a bull of excommunica- 
tion by Pius IX., October 12, 1867. It is, therefore, not ancient 
history, but unalterable Romanism as it is today. The first article 
of this bull has the following curse for all heretics. 

''We excommunicate and anathematize in the name of God. 
the Father, son and Holy Ghost, and by the authority of the blessed 
apostles, Peter and Paul, and by Our own, all Wickliffites, Hussites. 
Lutherns, Calvinites, Huguenots, Anabaptists and all other heretics, 
by whatsoever name they may be called, and of whatsoever sect 
they be; and also all schismatics, and those who withdraw themselves, 
or recede obstinately from, the obedience of the Bishop of Rome: as also 
their adherents, receivers, favorers and generally any defenders of 
them, together with all who, ivithout the authority of the Apostolic See 
shall knowingly read, keep or print any of their books, which treat 
on religion, or by or for any cause whatever, publicly or privately 
on any pretence or color defend them." • 

The doctrines of this bull were solemnly proclaimed by the 4th 
Lateran council, which practically set a price upon the head of every 
man, woman and child who did not embrace Romanism. This 
Council turned loose upon defenceless men and women, soldiers in- 
dulged to commit ^unspeakable crimes ; murder, arson, rape and 
plunder. 

The Council of Lateran A. D. 1215, declared: 

''Let the secular power be compelled, if necessary, to exterminate 
to their utmost power, all heretics denoted by the church.'' 

"A bishop," says Benedict XIV, "even in places where the tri- 
bunal of the Holy Inquisition is in force, ought sediciously and care- 
fully to purge the diocese committed to his care from heretics, and 
if he find any of them, he ought to punish them according to the 
canons," (Lig. Ep. Doc. Mor, p. 378). 

Pius V. excommunicated the Queen of England, and in his 
bull declared, A. D. 1570: 

"He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in heaven 
and in earth, hath committed the one holy Catholic and Apostolic 
church, out of which there is no salvation, to one alone on earth, 
namely: to Peter, prince of the apostles, and to the Roman pontiff, 
successor to Peter, to be governed with a plentitude of power; this 
One he has constituted prince over all nations and all kingdoms, 
that he might pluck up, destroy, dissipate, ruinate, plant and build;" 
Comp. Hist. anno. 1570. 

Bellermine, "Controvers," (Lib. 5, Cap. 6, p. 1090;) "The 
spiritual power must rule the temporal by all sorts of means and 
expedients when necessary. Christians should not tolerate a heretic 



80 The Question of Romanism 

king or ruler. The supremacy of the pope is the main substance 
of Christianity." 

Brovius, de Pontiff. (Roman Col. Agrip., cap. 1, 3, 16,32, 45:) 
''The pope is monarch of all Christians — supreme power over all 
mortals. From him Ues no appeal. He is judge in heaven, and in 
all earthly jurisdiction supreme, and arbiter of the world." 

Moscovius, de Majest. (Eccles. Militant, Lib. 1, Cap. 7, p. 26. ) 
''The pope is universal judge, king of kings, and lord of lords, because 
his power is of God. God's tribunal and the pope's are the same 
and the}^ have the same consistory; all other powers are his subjects. 
The poDe is judged bv none but God." 

"THEY ARE NOT HOMICIDES WHO FROM ZEAL FOR 
THE ROMAN CHURCH KILL THOSE WHO ARE EXCOMMUNI- 
CATED." (Pope Urban ii. Cap. Excommunic, 47, cause 23, quest. 5, 
apud Gratian. ) 

The Church of Rome, not many years ago persecuted Harvey 
for revealing his valuable discovery of the circulation of the blood in 
the human system, but today — every school boy knows that the 
man who claims to hold the kej^s of heaven and hell, was made in 
his mother's womb exactly as the puppy dog is made in its mother's 
womb, with no more care or minute detail and nicet}^ of construc- 
tion in its wonderful internal organism, and he finds that man — 
animal man — is too small a thing in the great laboratory of creation, 
to claim mastery over the ALL-SUPREME. 

Through universal education, the humblest slaves of Romanism 
are creeping from under their altars to stand erect, as God made them, 
to face the pope as man to man. They find they have been labeled 
just as he has and nature never makes mistakes when she puts 
her labels on her products. The violet has ever the same fragrance, 
the rose the same essence; the turtle dove forever coos, w^hile the 
lion roars, and the virus of the rattlesnake means death, yet the man 
who claims the grandeur of God's representative over all this m3's- 
terious, awe-inspiring, infinite creation, bears no mark of superiority. 

What the pope records of himself is quite another matter. The 
biographer of Leo XIII. states' that he had been separated from 
his family at the early age of eight years, and placed under Jesuit 
care, and educated at their colleges at Viterbo and Rome. This 
same authority declares that after the death of Pius IX., the cardi- 
nals assembled in conclave February 17, 1878, and, as their first 
official act entered into an agreement to the effect that: 

"They renewed all the protests and reservations made by the 
deceased sovereign pontiff, whether against the occupation of the 



The Roman Hierarchy 81 

States of the church, or against the laws and decrees enacted to the 
detriment of the church and the apostoUc see; and that 
they were unanimously determined to follow the course marked out 
by the deceased pontiff, whatsoever trials may happen to befall 
them through the course of events." ^ 

According to the infallible laws of the papacy, what the bio- 
grapher wrote of Leo XIII. must also be written of Pius X., as the 
decrees of Leo XIII. must unalterably be the decrees of Pius X. 

Elected pope on this platform, and with his Jesuitical training, 
Leo XIII. made a record that none can mistake. What he claimed 
as pope was never more brazenly or blasphemously put by any pon- 
tiff, even in the darkest of the middle ages. In his '' Apostolic Let- 
ter to the Princes and Peoples of the Universe;" after the two in- 
troductory paragraphs, he says of himself: 

"Now, therefore, since we hold on the earth the place of GOD 
OMNIPOTENT, who desires that all men be saved," etc., etc. 

In this document the duty of Romanists is summed up, as 
follows : 

''And above all, may they take to themselves this law, to obey 
in everything the authority of the church, not with restrictions and 
reservations, but with the whole soul and with the greatest willing- 
ness." 

In these two propositions, the claim to the authority of God 
himself and the demand for unquestioning obedience, we find the 
key to the papalism of the dark ages and that of the nineteenth cen- 
tury the same. 

In his first encyclical Leo XIII., according to his biographer, 
O'Reilly, says, after having drawn a fearful picture of the world: 

''The cause of all these evils lies principally in this; that men have 
despised and rejected the holy and august authority of the church, 
which, in the name of God, is placed over the human race, and is the 
avenger and protector of all legitimate authority. If any sensible 
man in our day will compare the age in which we live, so bitterly 
hostile to the religion and church of Christ (i,e., Romanism) to those 
blessed ages when the church was honored as a mother of nations, we 
will surely find that the society of our day is moving straightway and 
rapidly toward its ruin, while the society of the former ages, when 
most docile to the rule of the church was adorned with the noblest 
institutions," etc. 

, In order to carry the world back to those "blessed ages'' (histor- 
ically called the ''dark ages") Leo XIII. continues: 



82 The Question of Romanism 

''We declare that we shall never cease to contend for the full 
obedience to our authority for the removal of all obstacles put in the 
way of our full and free exercise of our ministry and power.'' 

This means as every one knows, the restoration of the papacy to 
all the power it once had over the nations and this, he says, must be: 

''Not because the civil sovereignty is necessary for the protecting 
and preserA^ng of the full liberty of the spiritual power, but because, 
moreover — a thing in itself evident — whenever there is a question of 
the temporal principality of the Holy See, then the interests of the 
public good and the salvation of the whole of human society are in- 
A^olved." 

He exhorts the priests and the people to: 

"Unhesitatingly reject all opinions, even the most widespread, 
which they know to be in opposition to the doctrines of the church.'^ 

Romanists are commanded to get control of education, and so 
keep the children from public and State schools, ior this kind of 
education "clouds their intellect and corrupts their morals f' the}^ must 
make exterminating war upon the "impious laws^^ which allow civil 
marriages, because those thus joined in wedlock, desecrating the 
holy dignity of marriage, have lived in "legal concubinage instead of 
Christian matrimony;" and above all, every faithful Romanist must 
"Obey his superior." And this is the man, who, in'an encyclical 
letter as reported by cable to the New York Herald of November 
7, 1885, assumed the right to instruct Romanists as to their civil 
duties in the United States, as follows: 

"Every Catholic should rigidly adhere to the teachings of the 
Roman pontiff, especially in the matter of modern liberty which, 
already, under the semblance of honesty of purpose, leads to destruct- 
tion. We exhort all Catholics to devote careful attention to all 
public matters, and take part in all municipal affairs and elections, 
and all public services, meetings and gatherings. All Catholics 
must make themselves felt as active elements in daily political life 
in countries where they live. All Catholics should exert their power 
to cause the constitutions of the States to he modelled- on the principles 
of the true church.^ ^ 

In this summary we have the statement in a brief form of what 
was more elaborated in an encj^clical issued at Rome five years 
later, and published in the Boston Pilot and Catholic News in Febru- 
ary, 1890 — the most important document sent out by this pontiff 
so far as the American people are concerned politically — for 
whether delivered ex-cathedra or not according to Dr. Smith and all 
other standard Roman authorities: 



The Roman Hierarchy 83 

''Of course a Catholic is bound not only to believe what the pope 
defines ex-cathedra, hvt also to accept and obey whatsoever he com- 
mands.'' 

Note the teaching of Leo XIII. as to the duties of his followers, 
in this extraordinary letter, and see the need of organizing all lovers 
of our civil and religious liberties in compact bodies to offset the silent 
invasion of Jesuitical papalism. After asserting that ''the Catholic 
■religion is the only true religion," and assuming that the laws of the 
church are of equal force and validity with the teachings of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, he says: 

''But if the laws of the State are in open contradiction with 
Divine law, if they command anything prejudicial to the church, or 
are hostile to the duties imposed by religion, or violate in the person 
of the Supreme Pontiff the authority of Jesus Christ, then indeed it 
is a duty to resist them and a crime to obey them, — a crime fraught 
with injury to the State." 

This means, in plain English, w^hen any law is passed, or any 
action taken by any government which the Romish authorities deem 
"prejudiciar' to the interest of the church, or effecting "the person 
of the Supreme Pontiff," rebellion becomes a duty, obedience a 
crime. This is not ancient but present Romish history. Leo XIIL 
continues : 

"Since the fate of the State depends principally on the disposition 
of those who are at the head of the government, the church cannot 
grant its privileges or favor to men whom it knows to be hostile to it, 
who openly refuse to respect its rights, who seek to break the alliance 
established by the nature of things between religious interests and 
the interests of the civil order. On the contrary, its duty is to favor 
those who, having sound ideas as to the relations between Church and 
State, wish to make them both harmonize for the common good. 
These principles contain the rule according to which every Catholic 
ought to model his public life." 

Here we have a distinct call by the highest authority known 
to Romanists for the massing of the Romish vote to' carry out trea- 
sonable plotting against the genius of our American life and the en- 
tire movement and spirit of the age. In the relations of the church 
and State, he affirms: 

"That cases happen in which ^he State demands one thing from 
the citizen and religion the opposite from Christians; and this un- 
doubtedly for no other reason than that the heads of the State pay 
no } regard to the sacred power of the Church, or desire to make it 
subject to them. No one, however, can doubt which is to receive 
the preference, for it is an impious deed to break the laws of Jesus 



84 The Question of Romanism 

Christ for the purpose of obeying the magistrates, or ^o^ransgrress the 
laws of the Church under the pretext of observing the civil Law." 
In all the relations of life Leo XIII blasphemously demanded: 
''Perfect submission and obedience of will to the Church and the 
Sovereign Pontiff, as to GOD HIMSELF. In fixing limits of obed- 
dience, let no one think it is due to the authority of bishops, and 
especially the Roman Pontiff, merely in matters of dogma. Man's 
duties; what he ought to believe, and what he ought to do, is by divine 
right laid down by the Church and in the Church by the Supreme 
Pontiff:' 

In view of the fact that Romanists are taught that there is but 
"one true Church,'' and that Church has but one head, the Roman 
Pontiff; and that their salvation depends upon their submission in 
all things to his authority, it becomes a matter of grave concern to 
understand what application Leo XIII made of this divine right to 
politics, in a country where majorities rule: He says: 

''The civil prudence of individuals seems wholly to consist in 
faithfully executing the precepts of legitimate authority. In effect, 
he (the pope) has to order and regulate the actions of Christian 
citizens in view of the realization of their eternal salvation. It will be 
thus seen how indispensable it is, that, besides the perfect concord 
which ought to reign in their thoughts and actions, the faithful should 
always religiously take as the rule of their conduct the political wis- 
dom of. the ecclesiastical authority. Futhermore, in politics, which 
are inseparably bound up with the laws of morality and religious 
duties, men ought always and in the first place to serve, as far as 
possible, the interests of Catholicism. As soon as they are seen to be 
in danger all differences should cease between Catholics. The Ro- 
man Pontiff is the supreme ruler of the Church. The union, of minds 
then, requires perfect submission of will to the church and sovereign 
pontiff AS TO GOD HIMSELF." 

Silent consent in the decisions of the pope and his representa- 
tives is enjoined and it is taught that: 

"The actions of superiors ought not to be struck at with the 
sword of speech, even when they appear to merit a censure." 

As to educational matters: 

"It is therefore a strict obligation for parents to be careful and 
neglect no effort to energetically repel every outrageous injustice of 
the kind, and to maintain exclusive authority over the education of 
their children." 



Chapter VIII 



The College of Cardinals 



The duties of the college of Cardinals are divided into twenty- 
one committees, or ''congregations," which assume the right to 
direct and where possible, control the political, social and religious 
affairs of the entire world. 

^^The Sacred Congregations 

''Congregation of the Holy Office. (Congregatio Sacri Officii 
or Romanae et Universalis Inquisitionis)." 

Although this congregation stands first in the list of the Sacred 
Congregations, and is presided over by the Pope, only half of the 
title is translated into English. The entire title reads: 

^^Congregation of the Holy Office or Roman and Universal Inquisition.'* 
"This Congregation, erected and constituted by Pope Paul III, 
in 1542, (Shortly after the organization of the Jesuits), was approved 
and enriched with many privileges by his successors, Pius IV, Pius 
V, and Sixtus V. Its object was to combat heres}^ and false doc- 
trines, and to restrain heretics from injuring religion and the church. 

''Co7isistorial Congregation 
"This Congregation was founded by Sixtus Y in 1588. Its 
office is to examine and discuss the questions which call for a formal 
pronouncement of the pope at a secret or public consistory. It 
inquires particularly into the applications for the erection of new 
churches, parochial, metropolitan and cathedral; regulates all about 
chapters, the number of canonicates, etc.; and decides controversies 
arising therefrom." 

^^ Commission for the Reunion of Dissenting Churches 
"By a motuyroyrio act Leo XIII created in 1896, a stable com- 



86 The Question of Romanism 

mission for the reconciliation of the dissidents with the Roman 
CathoUc Chm'ch. 

"Congregation of the Apostolic Visitation 

''This Congregation was estabhshed to regulate the visits of the 
churches and Holy Places in the City of Rome, and the privileges 
attached thereto. 

"Congregation of Bishops and Regulars 

''This Congregation was founded by Gregory XIII and Sixtus 
V, for the arrangement of the rights and privileges of Bishops and of 
the Regular Orders established in the Church — meaning monastic 
and conventual. Hence all classes of appeal against the Bishops' 
decisions, whether by seculars or regulars, are referred to it. It is 
also entrusted with the revision and approbation of the rules of re- 
ligious bodies. 

"Congregation of the Council 

"This Congregation was founded by Pius IV, for the purpose 
of promoting the observance of the decrees of the 'Council of Trent. 
To this Pius V added the interpretation of these decrees and the de- 
cision of all controversies arising from them. In 1587, this Congrega- 
tion was also commissioned by Pope Sixtus V to revise the decrees 
of all provincial Councils, and to see that all Bishops paid, at the time 
required by the canons, their visits 'ad limina apostolorum/ and sub- 
mitted to the Holy See a report of their dioceses. 

"Benedict XIV, however, appointed a special congregation in 
connection with the Council, for the purpose of examining the de- 
crees of National and Provincial Synods, and a similar one was con- 
stituted by Pius IX, for the special purpose of attending to the 
visits and reports of Patriarchs, Archbishops and Bishops. 
"Congregation for Residence of Bishops 

"Many laws exist, differing according to circumstances, obliging 
bishops to reside in their diocese. Urban VIII established this Con- 
gregation for the purpose of seeing that these laws were observed. 
The rules to be followed by the Congregation were laid down by 
Benedict XIV, and are now part of the Canon law. 
"Congregation on the State of Regulars 

"Pope Pius IX restricted the jurisdiction of the Congregation 
of Regular Discipline to Italy and the adjacent islands, and estab- 
lished the new Congregation of the state of Regulars (members of 
religious orders) to perform similar duties for countries outside of 
Italy. 

"Congregation for Ecclesiastical Immunity 

"Instituted by Urban VIII to protect and defend lawful eccles- 
iastical immunities against the encroachment and attacks of civil 
magistrates and secular communities. Most of the cases submitted 
to this Congregation for examination and judgment arise in the Papal 



College of Cardinals 87 

States. Conflicts and controversies regarding concordats with other 
countries are now general!}^ decided by the Cardinal Secretary of 
State, assisted by the members of the Congregation of extraordinary 
ecclesiastical affairs. 

^^Congregation for the Propagation of Faith 

''This Congregation was founded by Pope Gregory XV, in 1622. 
The Pope in his Constitution Inscrutabih conferred upon it the most 
ample powers for the Propagation of the Faith, and especially for the 
superintendence of missions in countries where heretics or infidels 
had to be evangelized. For this purpose it could not only appoint 
and change the necessary ministers in the countries specially sub- 
mitted to its care, but also perform everything else it considered 
either necessary or opportune for the advancement of religion in 
such districts and provinces. The jurisdiction proper of the Con- 
gregation extends to all territories which are governed as missionarv 
countries. ?'. e. not by bishops constituted in the regular hierarchy, 
but b}^ Prefects and Vicars Apostolic. Certain countries even where 
the regular hierarchy is established, such as Ireland, England and 
Scotland, and the United States, are likewise subject to the Congrega- 
tioD and transact almost all their business with the Roman Curia 
through it. Hence, applications for dispensations, etc., are addressed 
to this Congregation through its Secretary. The Congregation has 
moreover, a legislative and judicial power; and by authority conferred 
upon it by Gregory XV, and confirmed by Urban VIII and Innocent 
X, its decrees, signed by the Secretary-, and confirmed by the Pre- 
fect, have the force and authority of an Apostolic Constitution. 

''Attached to this, there is a special Congregation for the Oriental 
Rites. 

''Congregation of the Index 

'This Congregation was founded by Pius.V., and confirmed by 
Gregory XIIL, Sixtus V. and Clement VIII. Its office is to examine 
books submitted to its judgment by Bishops or others, and to pro- 
scribe those it finds opposed to faith and morals. An Index or cata- 
logue of wicked and dangerous books had already been drawn up at 
the Council of Trent and approA^ed by Pope Pius IV. Hence the 
name. Prefect: His Eminence Andreas Cardinal Steinhuber, 
Jesuit. 

''Congregation of Rites 

"This Congregation was instituted by Sixtus V., for the purpose 
of promoting the observance of the Sacred Rites and Ceremonies of 
the Church and of restoring and reforming them when necessary. 
It was also charged with the process of the Canonization of Saints, 
and with the regulation of the days to be observed as feasts in the 
Church, and was bound besides to see that all Kings, Princes, Ambas- 
sadors and other exalted personages, whether lay or clerical, were 
received with becoming dignity and honor at the Papal Court. These 
are the duties which it still performs. 



88 The Question of Romanism 

''Congregation of Ceremonies 
"This Congregation arranges all the Pontifical ceremonies and 
decides questions of participation and precedence in them. 
''Congregation of Regular Discipline 
''This Congregation was established by Innocent XII., to pro- 
mote the observance of disciphne in monasteries and convents; to 
regulate the time to be spent in novitiates, to grant licenses for the 
reception of postulants and for their training and profession, etc. 
"Penitentiary Apostolic 
''This Congregation had its first organization by Pius V., and is 
established for the granting of spiritual graces, as absolutions, dis- 
pensations, commutation of vows, etc. 

"Congregation for Indulgences and Sacred Relics 
"Founded by Pope Clement IX. in 1669, for the purpose of solv- 
ing all doubts and difficulties concerning indulgences and relics, cor- 
recting abuses relating thereto, forbidding apocryphal, false, or in- 
discreet indulgences, examining relics newly discovered, etc., etc. 
General indulgences obtained directly from the Supreme Pontiff 
are null and void, unless a copy of such concession be deposited with 
the Secretary of this Congregation. 

"Cominission for Examination of Bishops 
"This Congregation was established for the examination in 
Theology and Canon Law of priests named for the Episcopate. 
"Congregation for the Fabric of St. Peter's 
"This Congregation Avas founded for the administration and 
preservation of St. Peter's and for matters relating to pious bequests, 
etc. 

' ' Congregation of Loreto 

"This Congregation was founded to have charge and take care 
of the shrine and Sanctuary of Loreto. 

"Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs 

"Founded by Pius VII in 1814, to assist the Cardinal Secretary 
of State in maintaining proper relations with foreign countries, es- 
pecially in times of revolution and disturbance. All corcordats 
and relations with foreign governments come under his supervision. 
"Congregation of Studies 

"This Congregation was founded for the advancement of studies 
and education generally in Rome and the Papal States. A special 
commission for historical studies is attached to it. 

"Patriarchs 

Constantinople (Turkey) — Joseph Ceppetelli. 

Alexandria (Egypt) — Latin Rite — Dominic Marinangeli. 

Coptic Rite (Egypt) — Right Rev. Cyril Macario. 

Antioch (Syria, Turkey in Asia,) Melchite Rite — Cyril Geha. 



College of Cardinals 89 

Maronite Rite — Elias Peter Huayek. 

Syriac Rite — Ignatius Dionysius. 

Latin Rite — Lawrence Passerini. 

Jerusalem (Palistina, Turkey in Asia) — Philipp Camassei. 

Babylon of the Chaldaens (Turkey in Asia) — Joseph Emaunel 
Thomas. 

Cilicis of the Armenians (Turkey in Asia) Paul Peter XII 
Sabbaghian. ) 

Lisbon, (Portugal ) — His Eminence Joseph Sebastian, Cardinal 
Neto. 

East Indias (Indostan, Portugese Colonie ) — Anthony Sebastian 
of Mitilene. 

West Indias, His Eminence Card. C3Tiacus Mary Sancha Y Her- 
vas. 

Venice, His Eminence Cardinal Aristides Cavallari. 



Chapter IX. 



Congregation of the Holy Office and 
Universal Inquisition 



The foregoing demonstrates that every department of private 
and pubHc Hfe in the United States is systematically under the 
active supervision, and where possible, dictatorship of the twenty- 
one Congregations of the executive department of the corporation 
of Rome; the College of Cardinals. 

The three following concern us most: The Congregation of the 
Holy Office and Universal Inquisition; the department of imperial 
despotism, which occupies exactly the same place in the Church of 
Rome in this twentieth century, that it did at the time of the Refor- 
mation; when it fought by every conceivable means of torture that 
the minds of demons could conceive, every step of human progres- 
that would shed the faintest ray of intellectual light through the 
dense wall this religio-politico system had raised between the chil- 
dren of earth and their Creator. Over 60,000,000 of human beings 
were put to death through this slaughter house, labeled Holy Office, 
for simply daring to use the minds the All-Supreme had given them. 
And the man who passed final sentence and was the chief executioner, 
was the Holy Father of the Holy Church, who claimed to represent 
Christ on earth. 

There is no allusion in the Bible to the sphericity of the earth 
and the early fathers taught that it was fiat. History tells us that 
Nicholas Copernicus, who established the scientific fact that the 
world was round, had fully matured his heliocentric theory of the 
universe by the year 1507, but under threats from the Inquisition 
did not dare to publish his work for thirty-six years. 



The Inquisition 91 

Giordano BrunO; an ex-dominican priest, was imprisoned for 
seven years by order of Clement VIII and his inquisitors, then pub- 
licly excommunicated and burned at the stake in 1600, because he 
taught the world was round. Today an imposing statue erected by 
Italian patriots, stands like an avenging god, upon the spot of exe- 
cution in the city of Rome, under the shadow of the Vatican, 

Galileo, the great astronomer, after inventing the telescope and 
making wonderful discoveries in the solar system, was cited to appear 
before the Inquisition. He pleaded his old age, (70) and infirm 
health, but Pope Urban was merciless. The great scientist was put 
through the tortures of the Inquisition until he recanted and pro- 
fessed to conform to the doctrines of hisignorant torturers who taught 
that the earth was flat; that the sun revolved, and not the earth, be 
was then forced to go into retirement; ^'condemned as vehemently 
suspected of heresy;" subject to incarceration at will by the tribunal 
of the Inquisition, and forced to do heavy penances: But he said: 
/'The earth still moves." 

Columbus, on his second voyage to the continent, expressed 
his belief that the world was round, for which he was brought back 
to Spain in chains. This episode, the Jesuits have taken out of the 
school books, with so'many other historical facts, that Bismark said: 
''The saddest thing I saw in Paris was the mutilated text books." 

Ecclesiasticism compelled the state to make religious dissidence 
a criminal offense of the worst description, and the ingenuity of savage 
persecutors has failed to reach the inhuman barbarism of the Chris- 
tian inventors of the Holy Office, in their deadly effort to kill thought. 
The result was; while the power of Rome remained unshaken for 
many centuries the very best minds of the race were killed 
off as heterodox, and abject believers alone remained to propagate 
the species. It is calculated that during the fifteenth and sixteenth 
centuries 5,000,000 men and women were put to death in Spain, 
alone, by the Holy Inquisition. For many centuries, therefore, 
there went on a survival, not of the fittest, but of the cruel, super- 
stitious, ignorant and credulous. Heretics could find no wives; 
priests would not marry them; only belief in Romish dogmas was 
bred. Thus all scholarship; all thought and science became the 
servant of superstition. "The type was formed of a piety whose 
supreme virtue was abject assent; the Jesuitical sacrifice of reason." 

It is impossible in this age of free thought to conceive the phy- 



92 The Question of Romanism 

sical suffering of those who dared to think independently of the 
church of Rome; the wholesale slaughter of defenseless men, women 
and children; the burning of cities; the laying waste and depopula- 
tion of whole countries by order of the Holy Father of the Holy 
Church. 

These butcheries and persecutions had such a terrorizing effect 
on the minds of the people that it not only suppressed all spontaneous 
intellectual effort, but after two or three hundred years of papal 
rule; Rome was described as ''one vast madhouse with priests as 
keepers." 

''But/' says the reader, "the Inquisition belongs to a savage 
age. Romanism has changed like everything else." Romanism 
cannot change. It is semper aedem — ever the same. But 
Modernism, which is universal intelligence — the phoenix from the 
ashes of martyrs — possesses the earth and appaUs the keepers of the 
Inquisition. 

The following, from a Romish periodical, entitled La Bandiera 
Catolica, (The Catholic Banner) printed in Barcelona, Spain, and 
bearing date of July 29, 1883, is an expression of Romish senti- 
ment only twenty-five years ago. 

"Thank God, we have at last turned toward the times when 
heretical doctrines were persecuted as they should be, and when 
those who propagated them were punished with exemplary punish- 
ment. 

"Under the pretext of falsely called religious tolerence, which 
revolutionary winds brought to this classic country of Catholicism, 
the irreconcilable enemies of our most holy religion have been carr}-- 
ing out their plans, and have scandalized the world with the propa- 
gation of their impious writings. Fortunately, the cry of indigna- 
tion which such scandalous conduct drew from the hearts of all 
good Catholics has found an echo in the consciences of our rulers, 
who, although late, have now listened to the voice of duty, giving 
full satisfaction to good Catholics by a wise and opportune order for 
the burning of a number of Protestant books, which evil disposed 
persons were introducing into the country in spite of the vigilance of 
sincere Catholics. 

"But Catholic Barcelona, the country of St. Eulalia and of 
Blessed Oriol, has the very great pleasure of witnessing an 'Auto 
da fe' in the last part of this 19th century." (Burning of heretics 
was called 'Auto da fe.') 

"On the 26th instant, the festival of the Apostle James, in the 
Custom House yard of this city, one of the most glorious .traditions 
of the Catholic religion, was carried out b}' the burning of books,, 
destined to pei'vei't the tender henrts of our children. 



The Inquisition 93 

''It is in vain that the sons of Satan hft up their voice and cry 
out against this most righteous act, which is but the beginning of a 
glorious era, of a new epoch, in which the brightness of the Sun of 
Righteousness, with its purest Hght, will dispel the darkness of igno- 
rance and error. There is but a step between this event which we 
record and the setting up of the Holy Inquisition. What we now 
want is the good will and united efforts of pure and true Cathohcs. 
It seems that the government is disposed to carry out our desires; 
and it is onh^ right that we should take advantage of this new turn 
of affairs, in order to reach as soon as possible the goal of our aspira- 
tions. . 



''Onward then, good and sincere Catholics! The happy day of 
our social and religious regeneration is not far off. The 'Auto da 
Fe,' Avith which we are now occupied, is a clear and evident proof of 
the sincerity of our indications. The re-establishment of the Holy 
Tribunal of the Inquisition must soon take place. Its reign will be 
more glorious and fruitful in results than in the past. Our Catholic 
heart overflows with enthusiasm, and the immense joy w^hich we 
experience as we begin to reap the fruit of our present campaign, ex- 
ceeds our imagination. What a day of pleasure will that be for us 
when we see free-masons^ spiritualists, free-thinkers and anti- 
clericals writhing in the flames of the Inquisition!" 

That Roman Catholics may not be ignorant of the deeds of the 
Inquisition in the past, the following appears in another column of 
the same number of La Bandiera Catolica: 

" We judge that our esteemed subscribers will read with great 
pleasure the statistics respecting those who suffered under the Holy 
Tribunal from the year 1491 to 1808, when this so venerable an in- 
stitution was abolished. As our readers will see it refers to Spain 
onlv; we are unable to give the numbers of those who suffered in 
other countries. W^e have believed it right also to publish the names 
of those holy men under whose hands so many sinners suffered, that 
good Catholics may venerate their memory: 
"By Torquemada: 

]\Ien and women burnt alive 10,220 

Burnt in effigy 6,840 

Condemned to other punishments 97,731 

"By Diego Deza: 

Men and women burnt alive 2,592 

Burnt in effigy 829 

Condemned to other punishments 32,952 

"By Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros: 

^len and women burnt alive 3,564 

- Burnt in effigy 2,282 

Condemned to other punishments 48,069 



94 The Question of Romanism 

''By Adrian de Florencia: 

Men and women burnt alive 1,620 

Burnt in effigy 560 

Condemned to other punishments 21,835 

''This last inquisitor established the Holy Office in America, 
and in 1522, as a reward for the same he. was elected Jesus 
Christ on earth; but so did he love his former ministry that he did 
not transfer it to another until the second year of his pontificate. 
He burnt during this time 324 persons, and condemned to various 
punishments short of death 4,081." 

"Total number of men and women burnt alive under the minis- 
try of forty-five "Holy" (mark the holy!) Inquisitor 

Generals . "^ 35,534 

Total number burnt in effigy 18,637 

Total number condemned to other punishments 293,533 

General total 347,704 

Dr. Bowling in his "History of Romanism," gives an account 
of the public burning of Bibles no longer than October 27, 1844, in 
Champlain, New York, b}^ Selmont, a Jesuit Missionary. 

Pius X has revived the Inquisition on books, and the way this 
Italian peasant puts the screws upon Romish brains that dare to ex- 
pand beyond his own limited conception, leaves no question as to 
what he would do with the authors if he dared. 

Dr. Bollinger, for thirty years an unexcelled scholar in the 
Romish church, wrote: | 

"In a long series of bulls and decrees, more than fifty popes 
established the institution of the Inquisition, or the Sacred Office. 
They restored it only a few years ago, after it had been suppressed 
in the Papal States by the Interregnum, but recently they have 
again installed it on the occasion of the canonization (making saints) 
of some of the inquisitors. >i^ * * They sanctioned the principle 
that a relapsed heretic, that is, one who has been convicted for the 
second time, of differing in doctrine from the church, was to be exe- 
cuted even if he recanted." 

One of the canonizations referred to was that of Pedro Arbues, 
of Spain, who, for his atrocious cruelties, was so hated as to be stabbed 
by outraged people at the altar of his church. This canonization 
took place June 29, 1867, when Pius IX officiated in great splendor 
at St. Peter's and commended Arbues without stint. 

For telling the truth and opposing the decree of Infallibility, 
Dr. Dollinger was bitterly excommunicated by Pius IX, and he be- 



The Inquisition 95 

came a leader of the Old Catholic movement. Pius IX in his hatred 
of great minds, said: "The absurd and erroneous doctrines or rav- 
ings in defence of liberty of conscience, are a pestilential error; most 
to be dreaded in a State. Cursed be those who assert liberty of 
conscience and worship; and all such as maintain that the church 
may not employ force." 

Force is a strong word, yet, the lamb-like, gentle I.eo XIII 
wrote to the Bishop of Perigueux, July 27, 1884: 

''The teaching given by the Apostolic See, whether contained 
in the S3ilabus and other acts of our illustrious predecessor, or in 
our own encyclical letters has given clear guidance to the faithful 
as to what should be their thoughts and their conduct in the midst 
of the difficulties of times and events." 

Between the years 1550 and 1820 the popes established Inquisi- 
tions in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Bohemia, Hungary, Ger- 
many, Mexico and the United States, for the sole purpose of de- 
stroying Protestants of these countries and enslaving the people 

One of the principal methods was by burning alive, and thou- 
sands upon thousands were thus destroyed. If people were even 
suspected of being Protestants, or if they failed to go to mass or con- 
fession, they were taken before inquisitors and tortured in ways 
too horrible to depict. A band of iron was sometimes placed around 
a prisoner's head and gradually tightened until it would crush the 
skull and the brains ooze out. Red hot pinchers were used to tear 
the flesh from the bones. Nails were pulled off, noses and ears 
cut off and eyes gouged out. The most fiendish prelates that 
could be found were chosen as inquisitors. They were devils posing 
as angels of light, while lust, avarice, cruelty and fiendishness were 
their ruling passions. History tells us in some cases inquisitorial 
bishops and archbishops had from five to one hundred concubines, 
whom they had taken as prisoners. 



Chapter X. 



Congregation of Indulgences and Sacred Relics 



''Founded by Clement IX in 1669, for the purpose of solving all 
doubt and difficulties concerning Indulgences and Relics," etc. 

^^ General Indulgences obtained directly from the Supreme 
Pontiff are null and void, unless a copy of such concession he deposited 
with the secretary of this Congregation." Did infallibility slip a cog, 
or was Pope Clement IX ignorant of the fact that he was infallible? 

Here is positive proof that indulgences in sin and forgiveness 
for sins are still sold by the church of Rome. Myers says: 

''When Leo X was elected to the dignity of pope in 1513, he 
found the coffers of the church almost empty, and being in pressing 
need for money to carry out his various undertakings, among which 
was the work upon St. Peter's, he had recourse to the now common 
expedient of a grant of indulgences. * * * "The archbishop 
of Magdeburg, Germany, employed one Tetzel, a Dominican friar, 
to dispense these indulgences throughout Saxony." * * * "The 
archbishop was unfortunate in his selection of his agent. Tetzel 
carried out his commission in such a way as to give rise to great scan- 
dal. * * * The result was that erroneous views as to the 
effect of indulgences began to spread among the simple and credu- 
lous; some being so far misled as to think if they only contributed 
this money to the building of St. Peter's at Rome, they would be 
exempt from all penalty for sins, paying little heed to the other con- 
ditions; such as sorrow for sin and purpose of amendment." 

The evil effect of selling indulgences is aptly illustrated by the 
following story: 



Indulgences and Sacred Relics 97 

"Mounted upon a donkey that was equipped with saddle-bags 
filled with indulgences, Tetzel rode throughout Germany. He was 
very successful in his sales, and the indulgences were soon replaced 
by money in the saddle-bags. One day he was going along a lonely 
road when he was waylaid and robbed. He told the robbers it was 
the sacred money of the church and dire disaster would follow such 
sacreligious vandalism; but the robbers paid no attention to him. 
Then he hurled the anathemas of the church upon them, threatening 
them with the unpardonable curse of the pope and everlasting tor- 
ture; whereupon the robbers drew from their pockets indulgences 
which they had bought and paid for, and over the pope's own seal 
had a receipt of forgiveness for all sins past and future. 

''Indulgences were invented in the eleventh century, that per- 
sons might buy the right to commit all manner of sins, and were in- 
dulged with pardon before said sins were committed, and all past 
sins were canceled. So profitable was this selling of indulgences, 
that at Rome alone, two priests were recorded as standing with rakes 
in their hands, raking money into large chests, from the bar upon 
which it was deposited, so fast and thick that it could not be counted. 
The following is an authentic price list for indulgence in sins: 

''Procuring abortion 7s. 6d. $1.80 

Simony 10s. 2.40 

False oath 9s. 2.16 

Robbing 12s. 2.88 

Burning neighbor's house 12s. 2 88 

Defiling a virgin 9s. 2.16 

Lying with a mother 7s. 1.68 

Lying with a sister, aunt, etc 7s. 6d. 1.80 

Murdering a layman 7s.6d. 1.80 

Keeping a concubine 10s. 6d. 2.52 

Laying violent hands on clergyman 10s. 6d. 2.52 

A man could buy enough indulgences or "masses" to free his 
soul from purgatory for 29,000 years, at the church of St. John 
Lateran, on the f est day of that saint. As impossible as this sounds — 
the same business is carried on in the United States, under 
different names. Indulgences are even sold on the installment plan. 

D'Aubigne, in his history of the Roman Church, gives the fol- 
lowing speech by Tetzel, while acting as spiritual auctioneer for the 
pope. 

"Indulgences are the most precious and sublime of God's gifts. 

"Draw near, and I will give you letters duly sealed, by which 
even the sins you shall hereafter commit shall be all forgiven you. 



98 The Question of Romanism 

''I would not exchange my privileges for those of St. Peter in 
heaven; for I have saved more souls by my indulgences than he by 
his sermons. 

''There is no sin so great that the indulgence cannot remit it, 
and even if one should — which is impossible — ravish the holy mother 
of God, let him pay, let him only pay largely, and it shall be forgiven 
him. The very moment that the money goes into the pope's box, 
that moment even the condemned soul of the sinner flies to heaven." 

This reckless trafficing in sin brought about the Reformation, 
which taught the mother church a severe lesson, and today she pur- 
sues the same tactics under cover of the confessional where the 
sacramental seal binds alike priest and penitent. 

A professor in one of our universities, on a visit to Mexico a 
few years ago, read these notices on a church door in Pueblo: 

"The raffle for souls will take place in this temple on the last 
day of the present month, immediately after divine service. Buy 
a ticket in this lottery, and if your ticket is a fortunate one the soul 
you name shall escape from fiery torment into the kingdom of 
heaven. * * * The raffle for souls which is held annually 
by the women's board of charities of St. Mark's parochial church 
was celebrated the 2nd day of December, and the soul of Mr. Floren- 
tine Roberto obtained the first prize, corresponding to the number 
180, and the seven corresponding masses will be celebrated on the 
6th of the month at six o'clock in the morning. The second prize 
corresponding to the number 892, was drawn by the soul of Mr. 
Mariano Calderon, and the three corresponding high masses will be 
applied to his benefit on the fourth day of the month. * * * 
Money placed in this box relieves a soul now suffering torments 
in purgatory. Do for these souls as you will wish others to do for 
thee, when thou art in like condition." 

Ex-priest William Hogan describes how the inhabitants and 
troops in Principe, Cuba, turned out to do honor to a huge bull of 
indulgences which had arrived from the pope of Rome; and tells 
of accompanying a Scotch gentleman to the house of the priest, 
where he bought, for two dollars and fifty cents, "an indulgence 
for any sin 1 might commit, except four, which I will not mention. 
These, I was told could only be forgiven by the pope, and would 
cost me a considerable sum of money. '^ * * Any person 
can purchase indulgences in Havana, from twelve and a half cents 
to five dollars. * ^' * The first year I officiated as a Romish 
priest in Philadelphia, I sold nearly three thousand indulgences. 
Some explanation is necessary here, as I cannot presume that Ameri- 



Indulgences and Sacred Relics 99 

cans are acquainted with a doctrine called, ^pious fraud.' The pope 
and the propaganda deemed it prudent to substitute some other 
name for indulgences, and the usual document specifying the nature 
of indulgences given to pious sinners in the United States, and 
called them scapulars; thus enabling the priests and bishops to swear 
on the holy evangelists, that no indulgences are sold in the United 
States. This is what holy mother calls 'pious frauds.' " 

The same author says: ''In Romish churches in Ireland; at 
eVer}' mass, announcements are made to this effect from the altars: 
'Take notice that there will be an indulgence on — day — in church. 
Confessions will be heard on — day, to prepare those who wish to 
partake of the indulgence.' " 

As this same "Sacred Congregation" that peddles indulgences; 
also has charge of the relic department, let us glance at a few of the 
curios which tourists pay to see while visiting the cathedrals of the 
corporation of Rome in this twentieth century. 

One of the most prominent images to be found in Rome is that 
of Peter, under the greatest dome in the world on the cathedral 
of St. Peter's, whose splendor exceeds anything of the kind the hu- 
man eye ever rested upon. It is a bronze statue, larger than life 
and believed to be the old Roman statue of Jupiter made to repre- 
sent the apostle. Once a year this pagan image is clothed with 
the pope's robes; on its head is placed the triple crown; and on the 
finger the ring of the pope; and every day thronging multitudes 
crowd about the image and reverently abase themselves before it 
as if it were God. This statue is devoutly w^orshipped by the pea- 
sants and low^er classes, who, after kneeling on the marble floor tell- 
ing their beads; reverently approach to kiss the toe. Occasionally 
an elegantly dressed lady or a w^hite haired priest will approach the 
statue; carefully w4pe the worn toe; kiss it and press the forehead 
against it, or kiss it a second time with deep veneration; then retire 
backw^ards as if from the presence of a royal ruler. 

There are enough pieces of the true cross in the Romish world 
today, to build a church. 

"The board bearing the superscription w^hich Pilate wTote in 
Greek, Latin and Hebrew can be seen in the church of Santa Cruce, 
Rome. Also, one of the nails used in the crucifixion, two thoins 
from the crown of thorns; the finger of St. Thomas with which he 
touched the holy rib of the Lord; the piece of money Avhich Judas 



100 The Question of Romanism 

received for betraying the Lord; a piece of the coat of Christ; a piece 
of the veil and hair of the Virgin Mary; pieces of the arms of Peter 
and Paul; a bottle of the blood of Christ; also one full of the milk of 
Mary; some of the manna which fell in the wilderness, and a part of 
Aaron's rod that budded; a part of the head of John the Baptist, 
and a tooth of Peter; a piece of Mount Calvary; a piece of the place 
where Christ Avas smitten; some of the skin and hair of St. Catherine, 
and the sponge which contained the gall and wormwood." 

The following are some of the relics of the church of St. Proxede, 
taken from the catalogue engraved in marble near the altar. ''The 
w^hole of the seamless robe of Christ;" (a part of which we saw in 
the Santa Cruce) "a tooth of St. Peter; a tooth of St. Paul; the 
chemise of the blessed Virgin Mary; the girdle of Christ; the reed and 
sponge" (another sponge) ''given to our Lord with gall and vinegar; 
the swaddling clothes of Christ ; three thorns of the crown of thorns 
and the tomb of the Virgin Mary." Then follows a list of the heads, 
arms, knees, thighs, cloaks of the apostles, monks, martyrs, saints 
and virgins that is astonishing. 

In St. Peter's, the Pope's own cathedral, which has a seating 
capacity of 80,000, they show the very pillar against w^hich Christ 
learned in the temple of Jerusalem. 

At St. Pietre di Vinculo they show the chain which bound Peter, 
and which was miraculously broken by the angel the night he deliv- 
ered Peter from prison. Filings, from this chain have been sold for 
centuries at exorbitant prices to be set in rings, breastpins, etc., yet 
the supply is always equal to the demand. 

In Naples there is a church in which it is said two vials of the 
coagulated blood of St. Januarius are kept. On fete days and 
special occasions, this blood liquifies and boils. This saint after 
many miraculous escapes was martyred in the beginning of the 
fourth century. His bones were discovered and exhumed three hun- 
dred years later. It is said that the liquifying of his blood is due to 
the presence of his head in the same church. This blood was mirac- 
ulously obtained and preserved, and the process by which the liqui- 
fication takes place is not without interest. The people crowd the 
church almost to suffocation: The space about the altar is well 
heated by gas light : The priest goes through his movements before 
the skull of the Saint with his warm hands clasped on the vials held 
sufficiently close to his mouth to get the benefit of his warm breath; 



Indulgences and Sacred Relics 101 

until the substance in these sacred vials begins to melt and effervesce 
then the people crowd around the priest to receive its holy touch. 

It is said, when Napoleon and his troops occupied Naples the 
priests told the people that this venerable martyr was angry at his 
presence, and would not allow his blood to liquify; whereupon, Na- 
poleon ordered a cannon wheeled before the church and said; unless 
the blood liquified in short order he would blow^ the building to 
atoms. The Saint accepted the terms and the blood speedily 
liquified. 

Let us glance at a few more of the genuine wonders which the 
only true church recommends to the veneration of the faithful 
(idiots). They are worthy of enumeration: ''Joseph's ax and saw; 
St. Anthony's millstone on which he crossed the sea; St. Patrick's 
staff by which he drove out the snakes and toads from Ireland; St. 
Frances' cowl; St. Ann's comb; St. Joseph's breeches; St. Mark's 
boots; a piece of the Virgin's green petticoat; St. Anthony's toe-nails 
and the parings of St. Edmond's toes. There is a vial of St. Joseph's 
breath, caught as he was exercising himself with his ax and saw; 
and a small roll of butter and a little cheese made from the milk of 
Mary." 

The intelligent world calls the ''sacred, immortal" white bull 
of the Brahmin priests, which they cleverly duplicate; "idolatrous 
paganism," but it is a degree above the old bones, toe-nails, toe- 
parings and general offal of the human body. Think of the milk of 
Mary, two thousand years old; and cheese and butter made from the 
milk of the Virgin! Jupiter turned lo into a heifer, why not the 
Romish priests, the Jewess Mary into a cow! 

The mental calibre of priests one thousand years ago, when 
they ceased to change, must be estimated by the products of their 
stationary minds. 

Among other sacred things, they claim to possess hair from most 
of the saints, and the chief qualification for making saints, was filth. 
They generally lived in caves; never washed their faces nor had a 
bath; never used a comb or knew^ what a pair of sissors were. They 
were professional beggars, who never earned an honest meal, and 
occupied the relation to the present hobo, which the monkey does to 
man. 

Saint Simeon Stylite had an original method of arriving at 
saintship. He is called a pillar saint from the fact that he stood for 



102 The Question of Romanism 

thirty years through rain and sunshine; heat and cold; upon a pillar 
which he increased in height from thirty to sixty feet, and from three 
to six feet in diameter. It is said, he never came down in all those 
years. In the biographical records of this embryo saint, we are 
told that he wore a girdle of rope which chaffed his body until it 
ulcered and flies settled in it. His leg also had a great sore; and 
when the magots fell from his filthy ulcers, he said: "Put them back 
and let them feed upon what God gave them." 

If Mr. Sty lite lived in this twentieth century and mounted his 
perch, he would be promptly taken down; given an antiseptic bath 
and placed in an insane asylum, and there would be one saint less. 
At Aix-la-chapelle, they exhibit part of an arm of St. Simeon, but 
they forgot to save the magots. 

There are '^twelve sacred combs, one from each of the apostles 
(nearly as good as new); a piece of the rope with which Judas 
hanged himself; a bit of the finger of the holy ghost; the nose of an 
angel; a rib of the word made flesh; a quantity of the identical rays 
of the star which led the wise men to the infant Saviour; two original 
impressions of his face on two handkerchiefs; specimens of manna 
from the wilderness;" (which was a fungus of a night, that spoiled in 
a day, and Exodus chap. 16, v. 20, records: "bred Avorms and 
stank." ) "A few blossoms of Aaron's rod; the ark of the Lord that 
Moses made, and the rod by which he wrought his miracles; a piece 
of the very porphyry pillar on which the cock perched after Peter's 
denial of Christ." 

"Spain and Flanders have eight arms of St. Mathew and three of 
St. Luke. In the Lateran church at Rome, they have the entire 
head of St. Peter and also St. Paul; in the convent of the Augustines 
at Balboa, the monks have a large part of Peter's head, and the 
Franciscans, a large part of that of St. Paul. At Burgos they have 
the tail of Baalam's ass; a part of the body of St. Mark and an arm 
of St. Ann. At Aix-la-chapelle they have two teeth of St. Thomas; 
a tooth of St. Catherine; a rib of St. Stephen; a shoulder blade and 
a leg bone of St. Magdalene; oil from bones of St. Elizabeth; bones 
of SS. Andrew, James, Matthias, Luke, Mark, Timothy and John 
the Baptist." 

It is, no doubt, for the purpose of carrying these sacred relics 
that they have five legs of the ass upon which the Saviour rode in his 
triumphal entry into Jerusalem. 



Indulgences and Sacred Relics ' 103 

It is impossible to estimate the prolific grafting imposed upon 
the world by this faking department of the College of Cardinals, under 
the management of the Italians; ''Cardinal Tripepi, Prefect; Mgr. 
Diomedes Panici, Secretary; Jos M. Coselli, Substitute. 

This idolatrous adoration of saints, images and relics is common 
in all pagan countries, and existed long before the Christian era. It 
has not only disgraced Europe for centuries, but has been introduced 
into the United States. 

It was estimated that two and one-half millions of pilgrims 
visited the shrine of the holy coat of Treves during its exhibition a 
few years ago; which netted the church over two millions; established 
its reputation as a reUc, and placed it among the great money- 
makers of the church. The authenticity of this coat was questioned. 
The church at Argenteuil claimed the original one, but the New 
York Tribune of Feb. 8, 1893. published the following: 

''The long standing controversy as to the holy coat of Treves 
or the holy coat of Argenteuil being genuine, has been settled by a 
decision that they are both genuine. The Argenteuil relic was worn 
by the Saviour when he was a boy and enlarged itself as he grew, 
while the coat of Treves is the one which he wore on the day of 
crucifixion.'' 

This reminds us of the decision respecting the two heads of St. 
Peter, one of which is in Spain, the other in Ital\'. It was decided 
that both were genuine, the Spanish head representing him as a 
boy, and the one in Italy, at the time of his death. 

When Arnold, the bishop of Treves, first started the supersti- 
tion about the holy coat, he held up the rag in the presence of the 
people while the choir chanted, and the whole throng fell on their 
faces crying: "Holy coat, pray for us; holy coat, we worship thee 
holy coat, thou art our life; holy coat, our hope, our hope." 

Because intelligent Romanists no longer believe in this ungodly 
rubbish, the pope laments 'modernism. 



Chapter XI. 



Congregation of the Index 



Congregation of the Index conveys no meaning to the uninitiated^ 
but it is of most vital importance to the historical worid. ''Its office 
is to examine books submitted to its judgment by bishops or others, 
and to proscribe those it finds opposed to faith and morals." The 
Prefect (head) of the congregation is Cardinal Steinhuber, a Jesuit, 
born November 11, 1825. This antique, of a dead age, makes a good 
foil against modernism, of Avhich he knows nothing. But, as a mem- 
ber of the hierarchy, he will sign anything that his Jesuit masters 
demand, for he has taken an oath to ''wage relentless war, secretly 
or openly against all heretics, Protestants and liberals. 

The Jesuits, all over the world, have their detectives in the 
schools and libraries to destroy historical records against the church 
of Rome and their own murderous order — twin of the black hand. 

.After Marie Corelli, who had been a Romanist, wrote her "Master 
Christian" she came under the curse of the Congregation of the Index 
and her books are excluded from libraries and destroyed wherever 
found. This vandalism is going on all over the United States, and 
there should be a thorough and decisive uprising against it. Let 
this Protestant nation form a Congregation of the Index, not only 
to protect the libraries, but to inspect the false and treasonable books 
which are being taught in the parochial, Jesuit schools. France, 
Italy, Mexico, and other Romish countries have government inspectors 
to pass upon all school books, and it has resulted in the abolishing of 
parochial and convent schools; but the machinery of our greatest 
nation on earth, seems to be retrogressive, instead of progressive. 



Congregation of the Index 105 

The Corporation of Rome orders books out of our free schools, 
and American citizens never even ask what they are teaching. Some 
years ago, Swinton's Word Book came under the ban of the Congre- 
gation of the Index, and it was fought out of the Boston schools. 
In 1894, Myers' Mediaeval and Modern History came under the same 
baneful anathema, in San Francisco. It caused a bitter contest 
which was won by the liberals, and the episode was considered closed. 
Not so, the Congregation of the Index at Rome! The Jesuits waited 
and silently worked until they had a school board, thoroughly 
trained, and after seven or eight years, the public press made the 
simple announcement: ''Myers' History has been taken out of the 
public schools at the request of Archbishop Riordon." 

It is a question whether all the members of that Romish school 
board could read and write, and the Jesuits have controlled the boards 
of education in that city ever since. Let no man or woman be eli- 
gible for the honorable position of school director, who has had a 
sectarian education, or who has not passed through the public 
schools of the United States. Then, foreign Jesuit dummies will be- 
come an impossibility, as also, the works of Thomas Aquinas, and 
other traditions of ancient ignorance, superstition and criminality. 

Saint Thomas Aquinas, according to his pictures, was one of those 
rotund saints, who was obliged to have a semi-circle cut out of the 
table in order to get near enough to eat. He was so given to carnal 
indulgences that a halo seemed almost beyond his attainment; still — 
when a man is destined for a saint, nothing can stop him. Thomas 
laid the whole matter before the Virgin Mar}" — one would think that 
he would have consulted saint Magdalene — but the Virgin caused 
a deep sleep to fall upon him; during which she sent angels down to 
perform a little surgical operation, by which means Thomas was 
brought within the fold. No man can be a saint without the endorse- 
ment of at least one miracle, and this is the one which passed Thomas 
Aquinas to a front seat in heaven among the Princes of the church. 
Saint Origin, an adored oracle of wisdom in the church of Rome 
passed under the same surgical operation to become a saint. Sa- 
cred and profane history have other labels for males, who cease to 
be men. They are eunuchs — and eunuchs occupy the relationship 
to the human family that mules do to the animal kingdom. 

The late Leo XIII, personally revised and highly recommended 
the moral philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas to be taught in all 



106 The Question of Romanism 

Romish schools, and the following is a sample from this physical 
moral and mental anarchist eunuch, labeled '^Samt.^' 

''For the preservation of tjaanny, men of great power and riches 
must be destroyed, and schools not permitted to exist; people must 
be impoverished; taxes should be great and in great numbers ; and" — 
advice to papists in authority — ''if he have no virtue, let him so 
deceive his subjects that they may think that he has." 

The criminals of the world are those who have been taught the 
theology and moral philosophy of St. Thomas, Liguori and Dens. 
The writings of these men are the ravings of degenerate maniacs, 
who lived unnatural lives of celibates, under mental restriction; 
homeless and wifeless; while the passions of grossly licentious na- 
tures consumed them. Until the writings of these men are wiped 
from the earth, we must continue to build reformatories and prisons. 



Chapter XII, 



Infallibility of the Tope 



'^Infallibility, in a papal sense, is that quality bestowed upon 
the pope, by Christ — through Peter — which renders his ex-cathedra 
utterances infallible and unimpeachable." Which means; what the 
pope says when he is playing God constitutes the command of God 
expressed through his lips; when he is not playing God, history tells 
us he may be the wickedest creature on earth. Yet, we are taught 
that ''clean water cannot come from a dirty spout." 

While the pope was unquestionabh^ the highest and final court 
of appeal in all things appertaining to the church, infallihiUty was 
not a dogma of the church until 1870, when Pius IX finding the world 
slipping away from his jurisdiction, resolved upon a grand coup by 
which he expected to force the ignorant and superstitious back under 
the leash of papalism. He called the greatest Ecumenical Council 
of the Romish church which convened at the Vatican, July 18th, 
1870. ^len of distinction from every country were there; forty-nine 
cardinals, nine patriarchs of the Eastern commimion, four primates, 
one hundred and twenty-one archbishops, four hundred and seventy- 
nine bishops, and fifty abbots and other monastic dignitaries who, 
in their sombre robes amid the scarlet, purple, ermine and gold, 
made an imposing, spectacular display; Avhile mounted upon his 
throne, the cynosure of the vast assembl}", sat Pope Pius IX, vice- 
gerent of Christ, robed in pagan splendor. 

Most of these great men of the church felt that the}^ were called 
upon to perpetrate a gross sacrelige; a crime against human intelli- 
gence, and from among them rose Archbishop Strassmeyer, of Ger- 



108 The Question of Romanism 

many, who, had he deUvered the same discourse in the sixteenth 
century would have had the glory of dying at the stake, while in the 
nineteenth century it mereh^ provoked the contempt of Pius IX. 
and his perverted adherents, who, underrating the intelligence of 
the world, signed the doom of papacy. 

Archbishop Strassmeyer said in part: 

''Who does not know that, from the year 325, in which the first 
Council of Nice was held, down to 580, the year of the Ecumenical 
Council of Constantinople, among more than 1109 bishops who 
assisted at the six First General Councils there were not more than 
19 Western Bishops?'' (Meaning Roman Bishops. ) ''Who does 
not know that the Councils were convoked by the Emperors without 
informing, and sometimes against the wishes of, the Bishop of Rome? 

"My venerable brethren, we come now to speak of the great ar- 
gument which you maintained before, to establish the Primacy of 
the Bishop of Rome by the rock (pietra). If this were true, the 
dispute would be at an end, but our fore-fathers, and they certainly 
knew something, did not think of it as we do. St. Cyril, in his fourth 
book of the Trinity, says: 'I believe that by the rock you must 
understand the unshaken faith of the apostles.' St. Hilary, Bishop 
of Poictiers, in his second book of the Trinity says: 'The rock 
(pietra) is the blessed and only rock of the faith confessed by the 
mouth of St. Peter;' and in the book of the Trinity, he says: 'It 
is on this rock of the confession of faith that the church is built.' 
'God,' says St. Jerome in the six books of St. Matthew, 'has founded 
his church on this rock, and it is from this rock that the apostle 
Peter has been named.' After him, St. Chrysostom says, in his 
fifty-third homily on St. Matthew: 'On this rock I will build my 
church, that is, on the faith of the confession.' Now, what was the 
confession of the Apostle? Here it is: 'Thou art the Christ, the 
Son of the living God.' Ambrose, the holy archbishop of Milan (on 
the second chapter of the Ephesians). St. Basil of Selencia, and the 
Fathers of the Council of Chalcedom, teach exactly the same thing. 
Of all the doctors of Christian antiquity St. Augustine occupies one 
of the first places for knowledge and holiness. Listen, then, to what 
he writes in his second treatise on the first Epistle of St. John: 
'What do the words mean, I will build my church on this rock? On 
this faith, on that which said. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
hving God.' In his 124th treatise on St. John, we find the most 
significant phrase, 'On this rock which thou hast confessed I will 
build my church, since Christ was the rock.' The great Bishop be- 
lieved so little that the church was built on St. Peter that he said 
to his people, in his thirteenth sermon: 'Thou art Peter, and on 
this rock (pietra) which thou hast confessed, on this rock which 
thou hast known, saying. Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God, 
I will build mv church above mvself, who am the son of the livinii; 



Infallibility of the Pope 109 

God: I will build it on me, and not me on thee.' That which St. 
Augustine thought upon this celebrated passage was the opinion of 
all Christendom in his time. 

''Therefore, to resume, I establish — 1st: That Jesus has given 
to his apostles the same power that he gave to St. Peter. 2nd: That 
the apostles never recognized in St. Peter the Vicar of Jesus Christ 
or the infallible doctor of the church. 3d: That St. Peter never 
thought of being pope, and never acted as if he were pope. 4th: 
That the Councils of the first four centuries, while they recognized 
the high position which the Bishop of Rome occupied in that church, 
on account of Rome, only accorded to him a preeminence of honor 
— never of power or jurisdiction. 5th: That the holy fathers, 
in the famous passage, 'Thou art Peter, upon this rock I will build 
my church,' never understood that the church was built on Peter 
(supra Petrum ), but in the rock (supra petram, ) that is, on the con- 
fession of faith of the apostles. I conclude victoriously with history, 
with reason, with logic, with good sense, and with a Christian con- 
science, that Jesus Christ did not confer any supremacy on Peter, 
and that the Bishops of Rome did not become sovereigns of the 
church, but only by confiscating, one by one, all the rights of the 
Episcopate," (Voices, "Silence, impudent Protestant! silence.") 

"No, I am not an impudent Protestant! History is neither 
Catholic, nor Anglican, nor Schismatic, Greek, nor Ultramontane. 
She is what she is; that is, something stronger than all confessions 
of faith of the canons of the Ecumenical Councils. Write against 
it if you dare! but you cannot destroy it, no more than taking a 
brick out of the Coliseum would make it fall. If I have said anything 
which history proves to be false, show it to me by history and, 
without a moment's hesitation, I will make an honorable apology: 
but be patient, and you will see that I have not said all that I would 
or could; and even were the funeral pile waiting for me in the Place 
of St. Peter's, I would not be silent, and I am obliged to go on. 
Monsignor Dupanloup, in his celebrated Observations on this Coun- 
cil of the Vatican, has said, and with reason, that if we declare Pius 
IX infallible, we must necessarily and from natural logic, be obliged 
to hold that all his predecessors were also infallible. 

"Well, then, venerable brethren, here history raises its voice 
with an authority to assure us that some popes have erred. You 
may protest against it or deny it, as you please, but I will prove it! 
Pope Victor first approved Montanism, and then condemned it. 
Marcellinus was an idolater. He entered into the temple of Vesta 
and offered incense to the goddess. You will say that it was an act 
of weakness. I answer, that a Vicar of Jesus Christ dies, but does 
not become an apostate. Liberius (358) consented to the con- 
demnation of Athanasius, and made a profession of Arianism, that 
he might be recalled from his exile and reinstated in his see. Hon- 
orius (625) adhered to Monotheism; Farther Gratry has proved it 



llO The Question of Romanism 

to demonstration. Gregory I. (578-90) calls any one antichrist 
who takes the name of Universal Bishop, and contrariwise, Boniface 
III. (607-8) made the parricide Emperor Phocas confer that title 
upon him. Pascal II. (1088-99 and Eugenius III. (1145-53) au- 
thorized duelling; Julius II (1509) and Pius IV (1559) forbade it. 
Eugenius IV (1431-39) approved of the Council of Basle and the 
restitution of the chalice to the church of Bohemia. Pius II (1458) 
revoked the concession. Hadrian II (867-872) declared civil 
marriages to be valid; Pius VII (1800-23) condemned them. Sixtus 
V (1485-90) purchased an edition of the Bible, and by a Bull recom- 
mended it to be read. Pius VII condemned the reading of it. Cle- 
ment (1700-31 ) abolished the order of Jesuits, permitted by Paul 
III, and Pius A^I re-established it. 

But why look for such remote proofs? Has not our Holy Father 
here present, in his Bull in w^hich he gives the rules for this Council, 
in the event of his dying while it was sitting, revoked all that in past 
times may be contrary to it, even when that proceeds from the de- 
cisions of his predecessors? And, certainly if Pius IX has spoken 
ex-cathedra, it is not then, from the depths of his sepulchre he im- 
poses his will upon the sovereigns of the church. 

''I should never finish, my venerable brethren, if I were to put 
before your eyes the contradictions of the popes in their teachings. 
If, then, you claim the infallibility of the actual pope, you must prove 
that which is impossible, that the popes never contradicted each 
other, or else you must decide that the Hol}^ Spirit has revealed to 
you that the infallibilit}^ of the popes only dates from 1870. Are 
you bold enough to do that? Perhaps the people may be indifferent 
and pass by theological questions which they do not understand, and 
of which they do not see the importance, but though they are in- 
different to the principles, they are not so to the facts. Now do not 
deceive yourselves. If 3'ou decree the dogma of papal infallibility, 
the Protestants our adversaries, will mount in the breach, the more 
bold that they have history on their side, while we have only our own 
denial against them. What can we say to them when they show up 
all the Bishops of Rome from the days of Luke to his holiness Pius 
IX? Ah! if they had all been like Pius IX. we should triumph on 
the whole line — but, alas! it is not so." (Cries of 'Silence, silence; 
enough, enough.') 

''Do not cry out, ]\Ionsignori ! To fear history is to own your- 
selves conquered; and moreover, if you make the whole waters of the 
Tiber pass ovei- it, you would not cancel a single page. Let me 
speak and I will be as short as possible, on this most important sub- 
ject. Pope Vigilus (538) purchased the papacy from Belisarius, 
Lieutenant of t»he Emperor Justinian. It is true that he broke his 
promise and never paid for it. Is this a canonical mode of binding 
on the tiara? The second Council of Chalcedon had formalh' con- 
demned it. In one of its canons you read 'that the Bishop who ob- 



Infallibility of the Pope 111 

tains his Episcopate by money shall lose it and be degraded.' Pope 
Eugenius IIL (IV. in original) (1145) imitated Virgilus. St. Bar- 
nard, the bright star of his age. reproved the pope, saying to him, 
' Can you show me any one in this great city of Rome who would re- 
ceiA'e you as pope if they had not received gold or silver for it?' 

"Venerable brethren, will a pope who establishes a bank at the 
gate of the Temple be inspired by the Holy Spirit? Will we have any 
right to teach the church infallibility? You know the history of 
Eor.mosus too well for me to add to it. Pope Stephen made his body 
be exhumed, dressed in his pontifical robes. He made the fingers 
which he used in giving the benediction be cut off, and then, he had 
him thrown into the Tiber, declaring him to be a perjurer and ille- 
gitimate. He was then imprisoned by the people, poisoned and 
strangled'. Look how matters were readjusted. Pope Romanus, 
successor of Stephen, and after him John X., rehabilitated the 
memory of Formosus. But you will tell me these are fables, not 
history. Fables! Go, Monsignori. to the Vatican Librar}' and read 
Platina, the historian of the papacy, and annals of Baronius, (A. D. 
827). These facts which, for the honor of the Holy See, we should 
wish to ignore; but when it is to define a dogma which may provoke 
a great schism in our midst, that love which we bear to our venerable 
mother church, Catholic, Apostolic and Roman, ought it to impose 
silence on us? 

"I go on. The leaned Cardinal Baronius, speaking of the papal 
court, says: (give attention, my venerable brethren, to these words) 
'What did the Roman church appear in those days — how infamous! 
only all-powerful courtesans governing in Rome? It was they who 
gave, exchanged and took bishoprics; and, horrible to relate, they 
got their lovers, the false popes, put on the throne of St. Peter.' — 
(Baronius A. D. 912. ) You will answer, 'these were the false popes, 
not the ti'ue ones'; let it be so; but in that case, if for fifty years the 
See of Rome was occupied by anti-popes, how can you pick up the 
thread of pontifical succession? Has the church been able, for at 
least a century and a half, to go on without a head, and hnd itself 
acephalous? Look now! The greatest numbers of these anti-popes 
appear in the genealogical tree of the papacy, and this, absolutely, 
it must have been that Baronius described; because Genebrado, the 
great flatterer of the popes, had dared to say in his chronicles (A. D. 
904), 'this centur}^ is unfortunate, as for nearly 150 years the popes 
have fallen from all the virtues of their predecessors and have be- 
come apostates rather than apostles.' I can understand how the il- 
lustrious Baronius must have blushed when he narrated the acts of 
these Roman bishops. Speaking of John XL (931 ) natural son of 
Pope Sergius and Marozia, he wrote these words in his annals: 'The 
holy church, that is, the Roman, has been vilely trampled on by such 
a monster. John XII. (956) elected pope at the age of eighteen, 
through the influence of courtesans, was not one whit better than his 



112 The Question of Romanism 

predecessor.' I grieve, my venerable brethren, to stir up so much 
filth. I am silent on Alexander VI., father and lover of Lucretia. I 
turn away from John XXII. (1319), who denied the immortality of 
the soul, and was deposed by the whole Ecumenical Council of 
Constance. Some will maintain that this Council was only a private 
one, let it be so, but if you refuse any authority to it, as a logical con- 
sequence you must hold the nomination of Martin V. (1417), to be 
illegal. What then, will become of the papal succession? Can 
you find the thread of it? 

''I do not speak of schisms which have dishonored the church. 
In those unfortunate days the See of Rome was occupied by two 
and sometimes even by three competitors. Which of those was the 
true pope? Resuming once more: again I say, if you decree the in- 
fallibility of the present bishop of Rome, you must establish the in- 
fallibiUty of all the previous ones, without excluding any; but can 
you do that when history is there establishing, with a clearness equal 
to that of the sun, that the popes have erred in their teachings? 
Could ycu do it and maintain that avaricious, incestuous, murdering, 
simoniacal popes have been vicars of Jesus Christ? Oh! venerable 
brethren, to maintain such an enormity would be to betray Christ 
worse than Judas. (Cries, 'Down from the pulpit, quick; shut the 
mouth of the heretic!') 

''My venerable brethren, you ciy out; but would it not be more 
dignified to weigh my reasons and my proofs in the balance of the 
sanctuary? Believe me, history cannot be made over again; it is 
there and it will remain to all eternity, to protest energetically against 
the dogma of infallibility. You may proclaim it unanimously but 
one vote will be wanting, and that is mine. The true faithful, JMon- 
signori, have their eyes on us, expecting from us a remedy for the in- 
numerable evils which dishonor the church; will you deceiA^e them in 
their hopes? What will not our responsibility before God be if we 
let this solemn occasion pass to heal the true faith! Let us seize it, 
my brethren; let us arm ourselves with a holy courage; let us make 
a violent and generous effort; let us turn to the teaching of the apos- 
tles, since without that we have only errors, darkness and false tra- 
ditions. Let us avail ourselves of our reason and of our intelligence 
to take the apostles and prophets as our infallible masters Avith re- 
ference to the question of questions — 'What must we do to be saved?' 
When we have decided that, we shall have laid the foundation of our 
dogmatic system, firm and immovable on the rock, lasting and incor- 
ruptable, of the divinely inspired Holy Scriptures. Full of confi- 
dence we will go before the world, and like the apostle Paul, in 
presence of the freethinkers, we will know none other than Christ, 
and him crucified.' We will conquer through the teachings of 'the 
folly of the Cross,' as Paul conquered the learned men of Greece and 
Rome; and the Roman church will have its glorious 89. (Clamorous 
cries — 'Get down! Out with the Protestant, the Calvanist, the 
traitor of the church!') 



Infallibility of the Pope 113 

''Your cries, Monsignori, do not frighten me. If my words are 
hot, my head is cool. I am neither of Luther, nor of Calvin, nor of 
Paul, nor of Appollos, but of Christ. (Renewed cries — 'Anathema, 
anathema, to the apostate!') Anathema, Monsignori, anathema! 
You know well that you are not protesting against me, but against 
the holy apostles, under whose protection I should wish the Council 
to place the church. 

"Ah, if covered with their winding-sheets, they came out of their 
tombs, would they speak a different language from mine? What 
would you say to them when by their writings they tell you that the 
papac}^ has deviated from the gospel of the Son of God, which they 
have preached and confirmed in so generous a manner by their 
blood? Would you dare to say to them — 'We prefer the teachings 
of our popes, our Ballarmine, our Ignatius Loyola, to yours?' No, 
no; a thousand times no; unless you have shut your ears that you 
may not. hear, closed your eyes that you may not see, blunted your 
minds that you may not understand. Ah, if he who reigns above 
wishes to punish us, to make his hand fall heavily upon us, as he did 
to Pharaoh; he has no need to permit Garibaldi's soldiers to drive us 
away from the eternal city. He has only to let them make Pius IX. 
a God, as we have made a goddess of the blessed Virgin. 

"Stop, stop, venerable brethren, on the odious and ridiculous 
incline on which you have placed yourselves; save the church from 
the shipwreck which threatens her, asking from the Holy Scriptures 
alone, for the rule of faith which we ought to believe and profess. I 
have spoken; may God help me." ' 



A solemn hush of pulsing expectancy pervaded the awed as- 
semblage; a vote had just been taken — five hundred and thirty- five 
iii the affirmative and two negative — a vote which added the crown- 
ing blasphemy to the already heavily burdened church of Rome 
and labeled the coffin of papacy, Infallibilityl 

As Pius IX rose to give the decree public announcement, the 
sky, already blackened with dense clouds, increased in darkness, 
until the council chamber was lighted only by fitful flashes of light- 
ning, followed by deafening peals of thunder that shook the City of 
Rome. Yet the artful schemer on the throne would not be balked. 
A servitor brought a candle, and by the unsteady flicker of the wax 
taper, the mortal man, Pius IX read the following decree, by which 
finite man assumed the powers of the infinite God: 

"We teach and define that the Roman pontiff, when he speaks 
ex-cathedra, that is, when he defines doctrine regarding faith and 
morals to be held bv the universal church, bv the divine assistance 



114 The Question of Romanism 

promised to him in the blessed Peter, is possessed of the infaUibihty 
with which the divine Redeemer wills that he should be endowed 
for defining doctrine regarding morals; and that therefore such defi- 
nitions of the Roman pontiff are irreformable of themselves and not 
from consent of the church. But if any one — which may God avert! 
presume to contradict this our definition, let him be anathema!" 

This decree of infallibility forced the church of Rome to the 
climax of heathen materialism, toward which it had been trending 
from the earliest centuries. It was not only, of itself, the wickedest 
thing in recent times, but it made all other errors of the church irre- 
vocable. This decree ratified, sanctified and made irreformable all 
dogmas of the good popes, bad popes, scheming popes, heretical 
murderous, adulterous and false popes. It placed a strangulating 
cord about the papacy which makes change and reform an im- 
possibility. 

"Whom the gods Avould destroy, they first make mad." By 
this decree, with singular fatuity, Romanism, itself, struck the fatal 
blow at the papal structure, and Providence seems to have continued 
the work. By a remarkable coincidence, on that very day, July 18, 
1870, Napoleon III declared war against Prussia, which resulted in 
the withdrawal of the standing army of 20,000 French soldiers, which 
Napoleon had kept in Rome to guard the pope, and menace the 
Itahan patriots. Within two months the French monarchy was 
overthrown and Victor Emmanuel was informed that the French 
Republic would no longer sustain the papal power. 

The Italian government, at once, gave notice to the pope, that 
the city of Rome, whence popes had ruled the Christian world with 
unrestrained and despotic power for almost one thousand years, 
would henceforth be considered a portion of the kingdom of Italy. 
The Italian army took possession of the city and a vote was cast by 
the people, through which 133,681 ayes, to 1,507 nays, gave Rome 
to the Italian nation. 

The awakening light of civilization had broken in upon those 
priest-cursed Italians, and they voted awayever}^ earthly possession 
and temporal power of the popes in 1870 — two months after Pius 
IX had himself declared infallihlel He protested against this in- 
vasion, and called upon King William and other sovereigns to come 
to his rescue, but they would have nothing to do with Italian affairs. 
So, without a hand being raised in his behalf, Pins IX was stripped 



Infallibility of the Pope 115 

of every vestage of that temporal power wherewith Pepin and Char- 
lemagne had invested the Bishops of Rome in the eighth century. 

The papal troops were disbanded, and the pope was permitted 
to remain at the Vatican, one of the grandest palaces in the world, 
with grounds correspondingly magnificent and extensive. 

The decree of infallibility was so fiercely fought by such able 
men as Dr. Dollinger, Strassmeyer, Hefele and others, that many 
cardinals abruptly left Rome before the vote was taken. In fact 
it was commonly declared a fraud, yet it not only stands, like an 
avenging demon in the path of all progress and change in the Romish 
system, but the outbreak in the church at that time, while apparent- 
ly silenced, created a schism which has been widening until there 
is today a bitter and silent war within the church which can only 
end in total disruption. Father Hyacinthe Loyson and the Count 
de Mont albert of France; Dr. DoUinger and Strassmeyer of Germany 
seceded from the papacy and the Old Catholics took their rise — a 
movement so noteworthy as to be called the New Reformation, 
and so powerful that it is the main factor in the present disruption 
of the papacy. Added to this anti-papal force came the famous 
May laws of Paul Falk, in Prussia; the March Decree of Jules Ferry, 
in France; and in England the articles of Mr. Gladstone, who in his, 
''Vatican and Reproofs and Replies," wrote: 

''If the pope succeeds in his designs, nothing shall remain except 
an Asian monarchy. Nothing but one giddy heigh th of despotism; 
and one dead level of religious subserviency." 

The Scriptures tell of one, Herod Agrippa, who on a festal day, 
arrayed in robes of silver, sat upon a throne and was hailed by the 
people as God, and "immediately an angel smote him because he gave 
not God the glory, and he was eaten by worms and gave up the ghost." 

So suicidal, before the Great Master of the universe, seems to 
have been the action of that memorable day, July 18, 1870; so enor- 
mous its blasphemy, that today, the entire structure of the papal 
system is tottering to its final disintegration. 



Chapter XIII. 



Is the Tapacy 'T)ivine by God's Ordinance*? 



This is an age of reason, in which the man who says: ^T am God's 
only representative on earth, and have supreme power over all 
earthly and heavenly things/' must prove what he says or stop 
fighting about it. 

The priests, during the dark ages, usurped all literature and all 
avenues leading to historical knowledge; then the Roman church, 
declared itself the oldest and only true church, which arrogant 
claim is as unfounded and false as its religious methods and doctrines. 
Their entire organization rests upon the primacy of Peter, whom 
their historians say '^came to Rome in the year 42, A. D., in the 
second year of the reign of Claudius Caesar, and as first pope held 
the pontificate for twenty-five years," in fulfillment of the words of 
Christ, as recorded by St. Matthew: ''Thou art Peter and upon this 
rock I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." They say that Christ gave to Peter the keys of heaven 
and hell, and the power to bind and to loose; that is to hold or forgive 
sins, at will; which power he handed down to each succeeding pope. 

That Peter handed the keys of heaven and hell to each succeed- 
ing bishop or pope; or had any keys to hand down — which literally 
cornered heaven, hell and the entire human family — is as much a 
myth as the fable of the birth of Buddha, "who leaped from his 
mother's side and ran six steps;" oi* Minerva, the Greek goddess, 
born from the head of Jupiter. 

It is claimed by papists that Peter was taken to Rome to ex- 
pose a famous necromancer known to history as Simon, the nui- 



Is the Papacy Divine? 117 

gician. It is said that Simon, in the presence of Emperor Nero, 
flew into the air, but Peter fell upon his knees and called upon 
Jesus; whereupon, the devil, upon whom Simon depended for his 
power to deceive, was struck with terror, and let his protege fall to 
the earth, whence he rose with a broken leg. The stranger in Rome 
is still shown the stone upon which Peter was good enough to leave 
the print of his knee when he prayed, and the stain upon another 
stone,* upon which the magician fell, is the mark of his blood. 

Even if the legend did not carry upon its face — as it may not 
to some minds — unequivocal evidence of being a falsehood, the 
fact that it was never heard of until the fifth century would be fatal 
to it as testimon}^ to anything that happened in the first century. 

The only reliable record of the early Christian church is found 
in the Greek Testament, which was translated into Latin by the schol- 
astics; the ''holy fathers," themselves in 525, A. D., and called 'The 
Roman Catholic Testament." From first to last there is not a 
word of proof that Peter was ever in Rome, and there is not a line 
about popes or popery; or celibate orders; on the contrary, it teaches 
that Peter was a married man, and commands: "multiply and 
replenish the earth." 

Peter, evidently, did not know that he was expected to be in 
Rome; his epistles to the church give no such intimation, still less 
with having been clothed with special authority there or elsewhere. 
The other apostles are equally silent. Even the words of St. Matt- 
hew: "Thou art Peter," etc., which are regarded as the corner stone 
of the papacy, do not touch the question of St. Peter's being in Rome. 
St. Luke, who wrote the acts of the Apostles; who was with Paul 
at Rome and witnessed his martyrdom, does not seem to be aware 
of the fact that Peter was ever in Rome. James and Jude know 
nothing of Peter's residence in Rome. In all the fourteen epistles 
of Paul, he never even hints at Peter's being at Rome. In all the 
monuments and memorials of traditional antiquity, there is not a 
single authentic trace of Peter's presidency over the church until 
the^fourth century. Why was the pope, God's representative, thus 
strangely ignored? 

The first Christian Council was held in Jerusalem and presided 
over by James, and the office of pope — universal father — was a 
title unknown by the world for nearly six hundred years after Christ. 

The next seven Councils of the Christian church were all held 
in the East; four of them in Constantinople. They were all called 



118 The Question of Romanism 

by emperors; presided over by emperors or their commissioners, and 
the final ratifications were left to the emperors. The majority in 
attendance were Greeks, and spoke Greek only. 

Constantine, who established the Roman branch of the Greek 
church and called the first Council at Nice (325) was a murderer, 
who caused his wife and one son, if not two of his sons and his nephew 
to be brutally slain. The church explains this by saying that he 
became insane, but he remained emperor and head of the AAiestern 
church, exactly as the present Emperor of Russia, is also head of the 
Greek church. 

Emperor Theodosius, who called the Second General Council 
was also a murderer. Emperor Theodosius II, called the Third 
General Council and he attempted the assassination of Attilla. 
Emperor Marcian called the Fourth Council at Chalcedon 451 A. 
D., which Council decreed that the bishops of Rome and Constan- 
tinople were on a plane of perfect equality. According to which 
the keys of heaven and hell were in the keeping of both the Greek 
and Roman churches at the same time in different places. 

The Fifth Council was called by the Emperor Justinian, who 
procured the assassination of his friend and brother in the Roman 
church, Yitalian, who received "seventeen gaping wounds" at a 
royal banquet, and after his death, his wealth was confiscated and 
appropriated to the use and benefit of the Emperor. 

The sixth Council was called by Emperor Constantine Pagana- 
tus. The Seventh, by the Empress Irene, a Greek, who had her 
own son stabbed while he slept and rendered blind, for the glory of 
God and the advancement of Romanism. 

All of these Councils were declared infallible. by the decree of 
1870, yet not one was called by the church, bishop or pope. 

Some of the General Councils decreed image worship, while 
others condemned it; some of the popes commended idolatry, while 
others condemned it. For more than one hundred years war raged 
in Roman Christendom over the question of image worship. After 
it was considered finally condemned, the Empress Irene had it 
restored and the second commandment (Roman Catholic Bible 
Exodus, chap. XX), eliminated from the church service. It reads: 
"Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, not the likeness of 
anything that is in the heaven above, or the earth beneath, nor of 
those things that are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt 
not^adore them, or serve them: 1 am the Lord thy God, mighty, 



Is the Papacy Divine? 119 

jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto 
the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing 
mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my command- 
ments." The tenth commandment was divided in two, in order to 
make the nvimber complete. 

The simplicity of early Christianity did not appeal to the bar- 
barous mentality of the age, and the revival of pagan pomp, display 
and ceremonies was a natural sequence. The worship of saints: 
adoration of images and rehcs was introduced into the Roman church 
as early as 373, A. D. As proof that Romanists are idolators, one 
has but to read their prayers to the Virgin Mary, their saints, and 
the Litany of the Cross, as taught in this civilized age. 

''Holy cross, whereon the Lamb of God was offered for the sins 
of the world — Deliver and save us. 

"Hope of Christians, pledge of the resurrection from the dead, 
Shelter of Persecuted Innocence, Guide of the Blind, Way of those 
who have gone astray. Staff of the Lame, Consolation of the Poor, 
Restraint of the pow^erful — Save, O Holy cross. 

"Destruction of the Proud, Refuge of Sinners, Trophy of Victory 
over Hell, Terror of Demons, Mistress of Youth, Succor of the Dis- 
tressed, Hope of the- Hopeless, Star of the Mariner — Save us, O 
Holy Cross. 

"Harbor of the Wrecked, Rampart of the Besieged, Father of 
Orphans, Defense of Widow^s, Council of the Just, Judge of the 
Wicked, Rest of the Afflicted, Safeguard of Childhood, Strength of 
Manhood — Save us, O Holy Cross. 

"Last Hope of the Aged, Light of those who sit in Darkness, 
Splendor of Kings, Civilizer of the World, Buckler impenetrable, 
Wisdom of the Foolish, Liberty of Slaves, Knowledge of the Igno- 
ant — Save us, O Holy Cross. 

"Sure Rule of Life, Heralded by Prophets, Preached by Apostles, 
Glory of Martyrs, Study of Anchorites, Chastity of Virgins, Joy of 
Priests, Foundation of the Church, Salvation of the World, Destruc- 
tion of Idolatry, Stumbling block of the Jews — Save us, O Holy Cross. 

"Condemnation of the Ungodly, Support of the Weak, Strength 
of the Paralytic, Bread of the Hungry, Fountain of those that Thirst, 
Clothing of the Naked — Save us, O Holy Cross.'' 

^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

The present "Roman Catholic church" is a schism from the Greek 
and was organized as a Corporation July 18, 1054, when Michael, 



120 The Question of Romanism 

the Patriarch of Constantinople, excommunicated and athematized 
the pope of Rome and all adherents; which accounts for the fixed 
statement: ''The church has not changed in a thousand years/' etc. 

The original name of this branch of the Greek church was, the 
Latin or Western church. It is in no sense entitled to be called 
Catholic or Universal, for its ceremonies are' all conducted in Latin. 
The mass is Latin, the prayers are Latin, the canons of their councils 
are Latin, their decretals, and their bulls are all in Latin. They have 
a universal version of the Scriptures in no other language than Latin. 
Papal councils speak in Latin. The Council of Trent decreed that 
the Latin Vulgate should be considered the only authentic version 
of the Scriptures, and popish priests pay little attention to the origi- 
nal Hebrew or Greek versions. The entire service of the church is a 
pantomime; a mystery to the uninitiated. 

In its arrogant assumption of priestly power, the church has 
always calculated upon the ignorance of its followers, and the belief 
that it has the power to keep them in ignorance. 

This outcast Roman branch of the Christian church had no 
dogmas, decrees or records of Councils to guide them, nothing but 
the forms, ceremonies and traditions, from pagan sources, which, with 
the licentious, degraded condition of the papacy, had much to do 
with their expulsion from the original branch. Their first act toward 
fundamental law was the enforcement of celibacy of the priesthood, 
which, although it had been recommended for centuries was not en- 
forced until the Benedictine Monk, Hilderbrand — Pope Gregory 
VII, enforced the rule in the most brutal way and celibacy became 
a dogma of the church in 1085. 

The eighth and following Councils of the Latin church, as 
the Roman branch of the Greek was called, were convened 
by popes, and held in the West. ''The very institution of Councils 
seems an admission that, apart from them, there was no source of 
accessible and infallible authority on disputed points. Of these 
councils, the first Council of Lateran, 1123, significantly enough, 
convened with the dispute about the right of investure, and although 
some of this series of seven councils discussed dogmas, especially 
the Fourth Lateran Council, they were for the most part busied with 
matters pertaining to the rights and dignity of the popes and with 
questions concerning their election. Indeed several of them have 
less the aspect of free and independent councils than of assemblies 
gathered for the official ratification of proceedings of popes and curia. " 



Is the Papacy Divine? 121 

No matter what the teachings, ceremonies or professions of a 
community or society, they do not become laws, decrees or doctrines 
until passed upon and accepted by authorized officials of such com- 
munity, and the records of the church of Rome, prove that there 
is not one important dogma, decree or law of that church which anti- 
dates its incorporation in 1054. 

The seven sacraments of eschatology were written by Peter 
Lombard of Paris in 1164, although for at least three centuries later 
more or less controversy was maintained among the schoolmen as 
to the number, his work was confirmed by the Council of Florence, 
1439, but the question of transubstantiation, turning the bread 
and wine into the actual body and blood of Christ was left open, 
and bitterly agitated and discussed until the Council of Trent. 

Of the acts of this Council of Florence, Pope Eugenius decreed 
in the synod epistle to the Armenians, 1442: ''The language of the 
decree is full and explicit, not only as to the number but also as to 
the doctrines of the sacraments. The sacraments of the neiv law 
(mark the new law\) are seven, namely: baptism, confirmation, the 
eucharist, penance, extreme unction, orders and matrimony, which 
differ much from the sacraments of the old law^ etc. 

The Council of Trent, w^hich convened; with an intermission of 
ten years, from 1545-1563, settled the bitterly and long disputed 
question of trans-substantiation by making it a doctrine of the 
church. At this Council auricular confession also became a law. 
In short, all the present doctrines, decrees and dogmas of the church 
were ratified, except the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, 
which was left an open question, until 1854, when Pius IX made it 
a decree of the church. 

At the last Ecumenical Vatican Council, in 1870, infallibility 
became a dogma of the church, by which decree, that Council, for 
all essential purposes, must be the last. 

Although the new corporation of Rome declared Peter the 
founder of their church, they overlooked the fact that they had no 
patron saint ; an oversight, which Pius IX also remedied by making 
St. Joseph the patron saint of the Roman Catholic church, as he ex- 
plained: ''because Joseph was the earthly nurse of Jesus." 

When Martin Luther seceded from the Roman church in the 
sixteenth century, he merely threw off popery, which he found to be 
an unknown quantity in the teachings of the Scriptures. He did 
not change his religion or discard the Bible or Testament of the early 



122 The Question of Romanism 

church.^ He retained the simple doctrine of the two sacraments; 
baptism and the Lord's suppei;, through which the Protestants re- 
mained not only Christians, but the only true Roman Catholics or 
Universal Christians, while popery has forsaken every principle of 
the early church. 

History tells that Sixtus V, 1485, purchased an edition of the 
Bible and recommended it to be read, but Pius VII, 1800-23, forbade 
the reading of the Bible. 

The only religions that survive the ages are those that have 
Sacred Books; The Vedas and Shasters of the Hindoos have come 
down the thousands of ages unchanged; monuments of master minds. 
The Persians have their Zenda- Vesta; the Chinese, the Philosophy 
of Confucius; the Jews their Talmud; the Buddhists in China, India 
and Japan, the Gospels of Buddha; The Christians the Hebrew Bible 
and the Gospels of the Apostles, and last of all the Mohammedans 
have their Koran, while popery faces the enlightened future with its 
missal and prayer book and a curse upon modernism — intelligence, 
which is the rock upon which the papal derilect is pounding to 
pieces and no mortal aid can help, for science and education cannot 
dumbly endure the darkness of ignorance, superstition and infalli- 
bility. 

There was a congress of religions in Chicago in 1892, when the 
nations of the world were represented by their most learned priests. 
Let us have a congress of Bibles, in the hands of the laity as well as 
priests, that unprejudiced scholars may become familiar with the 
religious status of their neighbors before consigning them unheard 
to eternal damnation. It might do away with the most prolific 
source of international strife, bigotry and unrest. 

The ministers of the Evangelical churches have been trying to 
have the pope join them in establishing a Universal church, which 
only demonstrates their ignorance on the question of Romanism. 
The pope claims to have the only and Universal church, and he is 
not inviting Protestants to join it — unless they relinquish everything 
intellectual, spiritual and human, to bow in slavish submission at 
his feet. It is possible that Cardinal Gibbons and other dignitaries 
of the church might talk encouragingly to Protestant ministers, 
and quite convince them that the difference between the chvu'ches is 
so slight that they should be one, for they have taken an oath, though 
dispensed with to assume any heretical religion, etc. 

As the only true church, Romanism is making poor headway, 



Is the Papacy Divine? 123 

according to the statistics of the world taken in 1900. They then 
numbered 212,000,000 followers while there were: Brahmins, 197.- 
000,000; Buddhists and Confucians, 400,000,000; Pagans, 62,000,000; 
Jews, 8,000,000; Greek and Oriental Cathohcs, 91,000,000; Mohamme- 
dans, 154,000,000; Protestants, 115,000,000; All other creeds, 166,- 
000,000; Atheists, Deists and Infidels, 100,000,000. 

The rapidity with which the gigantic, despotic and powerful 
corporation of the papacy is disintegrating, through universal edu- 
cation, is making history with every passing hour. 

Thirty-eight years ago in the city of Rome, the regal chariot 
of the modern despot, Pius IX, drawn by six superb horses, richly 
caparisoned and escorted by outriders in the pope's livery of crim- 
son and gold; could be seen passing along the streets bearing two 
cardinals in full hierarchical robes holding the Sacred Bambino, or 
baby, in their arms. This Bambino — a wooden image as crude and 
hideous as any figure on an Indian totum pole, but dressed in jeweled 
filigree and wearing a crown of priceless gems, was being taken at a 
great price to some noble or wealthy lady who was passing through 
childbirth; to be laid upon her person to assure safe delivery. This 
divine Bambino had a cheap imitation, for the poor women, which 
was dressed in circus tinsel and had a crown of imitation jewels, and 
when the supreme moment of their divine office was approaching, 
they would drag themselves to the sacred doll and contribute their 
last penny. 

With the passing of the temporal power of popes, the Italian 
people are no longer called upon to doff their hats or drop on their 
knees, in the dust, at the passing of this monstrous, pagan pageant. 

The Rev. A. Robertson recently wrote from Venice: ''A great 
cry was sent up by the church, for what France did in appropriating 
its property, but in Italy all property has been taken from them. 
The papal church does not possess a stone or building in the land, 
or an inch of Italian soil. It cannot hold, it cannot build, it cannot 
inherit property. It is a tenant at will. It practically stands at 
the bar of justice as a convicted criminal. The pope himself cannot 
make a legal marriage. Formerly the schools were entirely in the 
hands of the priesthood. Now, no priest, no monk nor sister is 
permitted to teach in any national school — all the teachers of these 
schools are laymen and laywomen. Education in Italy is national, 
secular, compulsor}^, free and lay. The priests are drawn from the 
lowest class in the land, many from the pauper and criminal class." 



124 The Question of Romanism 

"Austria's papal church is torn b}' the "Los von Rome" move- 
ment which is sweeping Germany; France defiantly hostile; Italy 
antagonistic; Spain ready for rebellion; Belgium in the same con- 
dition; yet, untaught by all these lessons the United States and 
England fawn on this enemy of human liberty." 

Pius IX lies in Rome, like his wooden baby, out of sight, but un- 
buried; and Rome, the eternal city has a Mayor who is not only a 
high Mason, but a Jew. Verily, the light of Modernism is over- 
shadowing the denseness of the infallible, unchanging papacy. 



Chapter XIV, 



Modern T^omanism 



It is natural to presume that Romanism in the twentieth cen- 
tury, hke even^hing that appertains to the spiritual and mental 
unfoldment of the human race, is keeping step with the progressive 
and liberal tendencies of the age, notwithstanding its proud boast 
that it has not changed in a thousand years, but the syllabus of sixty- 
five articles recently issued by Pius X is the same old plaint that has 
come down through the centuries of the unlettered past. It does 
not contain one word about the progress and developments of this 
wonderful era, or a line on the advanced mental and physical awaken- 
ing of the times. On the contrary, he devotes himself largely to 
commanding the faithful, under anathema of the Inquisition, to 
''place no credence in the assertions of scientists or others," who 
might enlighten them on the fables and impossible doctrines of his 
church. 

The few priests and scribes who could read and write a thousand 
years ago, had received their knowledge from India; w^hich means 
their creeds, ceremonies and vestments; also the pagan doctrine of 
caste; men-gods over an ignorant, slave people, and history, only 
sixty years back, gives ample proof of the unchanged pagan des- 
potism in the church of Rome. 

In 1847, shortly after the election of Pius IX, he selected a 
liberal cabinet, of whom all but two were laymen, and he framed a 
constitution which took the liberal world by storm. '* A confederated 
Christendom" was talked of. with Pius IX at the head as leader of 



126 The Question of Romanism 

universal liberty. Crowded public meetings were held in the cities 
of the United States, at which leading men spoke in favor of '^this 
great liberal movement of the world." 

Horace Greeley made one of the addresses and moved six en- 
thusiastic resolutions, the last of which follows: ^'Resolved: That 
'peace hath her victories no less renowned than war' and the noble 
attitude of Pius IX, throwing the vast influence of the pontificate 
into the scale of well attempted freedom; standing as the advocate 
of peaceful progress; the prompter of social amelioration, industrial 
development and political reform, is the grandest spectacle of the 
day; full of encouragement and promise to Europe; more grateful 
to us, and more glorious to himself, than triumphs on a hundred 
battle fields." 

Little did Mr. Greeley imagine that twenty years later he would 
stand again on that same platform, to utter his disappointment at 
the failure of the hopes he then expressed; to indignantly denounce 
the pope, who had proved false to his pledge of freedom, and to give 
his sympathy to a real liberty in Italy, under the constitutional rule 
of Victor Emmanuel, when the pope's temporal power was in the 
dust. 

The proposed freedom in Rome, under pontifical patronage, 
was destined to an imperfect development and short life. In attain- 
ing the throne of Peter and assuming the duties of God's representa- 
tive on earth, Pius IX, if sincere, overlooked the fact that he, him- 
self, was merely the head of a system which is an endless chain of 
human slavery. The pope who could, ad libitum, tighten the chains 
of his subordinates, could not form a liberal constitution governed 
by laymen, without the consent of his cardinals. No law could be 
made by the liberal cabinet which had not been first approved by 
the hierarchy; which reduced the liberal cabinet to a farce. The 
press and liberal cabinet declared they had been trifled with, and the 
Romans, army and people, resolved not to be cheated out of their 
right to a liberal constitution and held Pius IX to his promises. 
Their demand was so imperative that the pope chose to regard him- 
self as in danger of his liberty, if not his life — which they indig- 
nantly denied. Instead of conciliating his countrymen, he deliber- 
ately abandoned them in the most cowardly manner, which threw 
political affairs into confusion and ultimately led to his downfall. 

On the night of November 24, 1847, Count Spaur, the Bavarian 



Modern Romanism 127 

minister with his wife, had their carnage at the palace of the Quirinel, 
where Pius IX disguised in a suit of Uvery, took his seat on the box 
beside the coachman, and under the hat of a lackey — the head of 
the Romish world, who claimed to hold the keys of heaven, hell and 
purgatory, rolled aw^ay from his palace. They rode all night to 
Gaeta, where, as guest of the king of Naples, he was protected dur- 
ing the seventeen months of his absence from Rome. 

There was no necessity for this secret flight. It was a trick, 
by which he appealed to the Romish powers to restore him to his 
temporal power by force of arms, and compel the Romans to accept 
his return on his own terms. He knew that he had forfeited the 
confidence of the Italian people, and only through foreign military 
aid could he punish the patriotic leaders, and secure a foreign garri- 
son to keep them in subjection in the future. 

The flight of Pius IX was welcome news to the Italians who 
proceeded at once, to organize a constitutional assembly. They 
closed the inquisition; reorganized the police; provided educational 
facilities and other beneficent measures which were greatly needed. 
A most respectful appeal was made to the pontiff to return and 
assume his spiritual functions, assuring him of their loyalty to him 
as the head of the church; asking only that he recognize the civil 
liberties which they had established and determined to maintain. 
They offered to concede complete liberty of action in religious mat- 
ters, through which they hoped to end peacefully, their long con- 
tention, but the pope indignantly spurned their proposition. Noth- 
ing, but their absolute submission to the former dictatorship of the 
papacy would satisfy him. He issued an appeal couched in the 
harshest language; addressed to the great powers; demanding their 
armed assistance to crush his people and their chosen government; 
to reinstate him on his throne, and to sustain him there. The fol- 
lowing is the closing sentence of the appeal, from ''Rome: Its 
Rulers and its Institutions,'' by the Romish author, T. J. Maguire, 
M. P. 

''Since Austria, France, Spain and the kingdom of the two 
Sicilie^ are, by their geographical position, in a situation to be able 
efficaciously to concur b}^ their arms in re-establishing in the holy 
see the order which has been destro3^ed by a band of sectarians, the 
holy father, relying on the religious feeling of these powerful children 
(if the church, demands with full confidence their armed intervention 



128 The Question of Romanism 

to deliver the states of the church from the band of wretches, who, 
by every act of crime, have practiced the most atrocious despotism." 

Louis Napoleon needed the support of the priesthood in France 
and jealous of the rival power of Austria, promptly sent a force of 
forty thousand soldiers, who, after two months of bloody warfare 
against poorly equipped patriots under the heroic leadership of Gari- 
baldi; took possession of Rome in the name of Pius IX. In the mean- 
time the Austrian troops had stamped out all patriotic resistance 
in northern Italy, and the pope literally walked over the mutilated 
bodies of his subjects, to his throne, in 1849. 

A short time before the city of Rome fell into the hands of Louis 
Napoleon, the patriots issued a protest to the world, in the "Cirolo 
Populare," of which the following are a few of the vigorous sentences 
addressed to Pius IX: 

''You say that you have received from God, the' author of peace 
and charity, the mission to love with paternal affection all people 
and all nations, and to procure for them, as far as lies in you, protec- 
tion and safety and not to urge them on to slaughter and death. 
False words! for they are belied by the solemn fact, confessed by 
yourself, of your having called against us and urged on to fratricidal 
war, Austria, France, Spain, and part of Italy. Who has caused 
the slaughter at Bologna and Ancona, and the carnage under the 
walls of Rome? You were adverse to that war which brave citizens 
fought for the safety of Italy; But, oh! You are not averse to this 
one, carried on by vile men for the purpose of replacing you, the most 
abhorred of sovereigns, on the throne which you deserted, and from 
which, by the inscrutable decree of Divine Providence rather than by 
act of yours, you have been deposed! Whose blood waters our land? 
Whose carcasses cover our fields? Unworthy pontiff! This blood 
cries for vengeance before the throne of God, and those sovils will 
bring back upon you the judgment of the most high! Who can for- 
give you, your perversions of facts and outrages on persons? Lan- 
guage has not words more black and disdainful than those you em- 
ploy against us, whose crime is that of having despoiled you of your 
earthly sovereignty after having exhorted you, in a thousand 
ways, to carry out true reforms, such as our wants demanded. It is 
not the word Republic we are in love with, but we want a wise, pru- 
dent and just government. To this point we tried to urge you; a 
point from which the government had far receded. 

"We are not infidels, as you charge. When you left Rome, the 
Bible entered it. The Bible, so long persecuted by the popes — both 
the gospel of Christ and the holy letters of the apostles, faithfully 
translated into Italian, are now in the hands of the people who read 
them, and there they find neither popery nor pope. 



Modern Romanism 129 

''Oh, senseless we! That we should ever have believed you, 
ever applauded your feigned promises and ephemeral concessions, 
to find ourselves now deluded of our hopes and cheated of our happi- 
ness! If you appeal to the religion of the canons, we stand by the 
holy religion of the gospel; you belie it. We are faithful to God and 
to Christ. Yes, we believe in the Christ of God, and our faith daily 
increases in comparing his doctrine with your practice. You, who 
alone might have saved our country and redeemed it from its lost 
condition, have joined yourself to our enemies to condemn and des- 
troy it.'' 

This indignant protest of the heroic defenders of freedom was 
answered by Pius IX. calling them blasphemers of God and religion; 
anarchists; red republicans and demons let loose from hell; but it 
also attracted the attention of the civilized world to the awful ven- 
geance dealt to the patriots on the restoration of the pope to the 
temporal power, through the reopening of the Inquisition. 

Foreign governments tried in vain to stop the inhuman butcher- 
ries in Italy. The pope under the guise of amnesty pardoned mem-, 
bers of the assembly; general officers and a multitude besides; but 
''amnesty" became another word for "death, prison or exile." 

Pius IX expelled the Jesuits from the Papal States in 1848, 
but he recalled them and made them the chief agents of the church 
in 1850, a position they have held ever since in that branch, known 
as the "clerical," or pope's party. 

When the French authorities saw what cruelties were meditated 
by the ecclesiastics, they tried, unsuccessfully, to prevent them. 
The Austrians, who held the northern part of the States were, in 
general, ready instruments of priestly excesses, but they sometimes 
turned upon their employers. Generelli quotes a case of an Austrian 
officer who, with his battalion of Crotes, had to protect papal exe- 
cutioners from popular fury, as saying: "If I had to serve the pope's 
government, I would tear off my uniform and break my sword." 

In the town of Bologna, alone, during the year of restored papal 
authority, one hundred and eightj^-six persons were shot. Gen- 
erelli cites a document from the government of Faenza and Imola 
which alleges a case where no less than eighty were shot after a single 
trial, w^hile ten more were sent to the galleys and thirteen to prison. 
(7 Lutti dello Stato Romano, p. 108). 

One of the most unscrupulous of the officials of the papacy, in 
carrying out the persecutions and massacres of the defeated liberals 
was Monseigneur Bidini, apostolic nuncio. So atrocious was this 



130 The Question of Romanism 

man's thrist for vengeance that he has since been known as the 
^'Butcher of Bologna." In view of his character for ferocity^ there 
were few governments in Europe that were wilhng to have him made 
the medium of communication with them. Yet, only two years 
after these events, while his notorious cruelties were still fresh in 
the minds of the people, this man was sent, b}^ the pope, on a mission 
to the United States, Mexico and Brazil. 

President Polk, in 1847, when sending the first Charge D^affaire 
to Rome from the United States, had requested the pontifical court, 
in the event of their sending any diplomatic agent to this country, 
always to send a layman; not an ecclesiastic. The Duke of Welling- 
ton had insisted upon the same diplomatic bases, when it was pro- 
posed that England should send an embassador to Rome. The 
deliberate disregard by Pius IX, of the request of our government 
in not only sending an ecclesiastic, but one whose hands w^ere stained 
with the blood of Italian martyrs to liberty, seemed a studied insult 
for which there was no excuse, and it was interpreted as an advance 
step toward a plot to move the residence of the popes to Washington, 
where the ''Butcher of Bologna" would manage the papal conquest. 

The Italian patriots of New York were informed of the arrival 
of this notorious messenger by Father Gavazzi, an exiled priest, who 
publicly exposed him in one of his lectures and a meeting was called 
to denounce him. The clerical friends of Bidini, fearing for his life, 
kept him in hiding and finally took him down the Hudson River in 
a tug boat to the ship which returned him to Italy. He had pre- 
viously been burned in effigy in Cincinnati, Baltimore and other 
cities, and his cruelties exposed in all the leading Italian papers. 
This was an expression of Americanism by our patriotic Italians, 
w^ho do not hesitate to tear the ''holy" labels from the pope's 
spurious articles. 

Pius IX found himself defeated at every turn. His schemes 
for the conquest of the Earth, which he had most infallib'}' blest, 
not only failed, but reacted upon himself like thunderbolts, and he 
took to cursing. He cursed everything that would not fall under his 
despotic dominion, and the gem of the world, for maniacal hellish- 
ness is the major curse hurled by this infallible man-god at ^^ictor 
Emmanuel, for leading the Italian nation away from his si ughter- 
ing Holy Inquisition! 
Pius I X'S Major Curse of Excommunication upon Victor Emmanuel 

"By authority of Almighty God, the Father, Son and Holy 



Modern Romanism 131 

Ghost; and of the Holy canons, and of the imdefiled Virgin Mary, 
mother and nurse of our Saviour; and of the celestial virtues, 
angels, archangels, thrones, dominions, powers, cherubims, and 
seraphims; and of all the holy patriarchs and prophets; and of the 
apostles and evangelists; and of the holy innocents, who, in the sight 
of the holy Lamb, are found worthy to sing the new song; and of the 
holy martyrs and holy confessors, and of the holy virgins, and of the 
saints, together with all the holy and elect of God; we excommunicate 
and anathematize him, and from the threshold of the holy church of 
God Almighty we sequester him, that he may be tormented in eternal, 
excrutiating sufferings, together with Dathan and Abiram, and those 
who say to the Lord God, 'Depart from us; we desire none of thy 
ways.' And as fire is quenched by water, so let the light of him be 
put out for evermore. May the Son who suffered for us curse him. 
May the Father who created man curse him. May the Holy Ghost, 
which was given to us in ourbaptism curse him. May the Holy Cross 
which Christ, for our salvation, triumphing over -his enemies, as- 
cended, curse him. May the Holy and eternal Virgin Mary, mother of 
God, curse him. May all the angels and archangels, principalities 
and powers, and all the heavenly armies, curse him. May St, John, 
the precursor, and St. Peter, and St. Paul, and St. John the Baptist, 
and St. Andrew, and all other of Christ's apostles, together curse him, 
and may the rest of his disciples and four Evangelists, who by their 
preaching converted the universal world — and may the holy and 
wonderful company of martyrs and confessors, who by their holy 
works are found pleading to God Almighty, curse him. May the 
choir of the Holy Virgins, who for the honor of Christ have despised 
the things of this world, damn him. May all the saints who, from 
the beginning of the world, and everlasting ages are found to be be- 
loved of God, damn him. ]May the heavens and the earth, and all 
things remaining therein, damn him. 

''May he be damned vv^herever he may be; whether in the house 
or in the field, whether in the highway or in the byway, whether in 
the wood or the water, or whether in the church. i\Iay he be cursed 
in living and dying, in eating and drinking, in fasting and thirsting, 
in slumbering and sleeping, in watching or waking, in standing or 
sitting, in lying down or walking, mingendo cancando, and in all blood 
letting. May he be cursed inwardly and outwardly. May he be 
cvu^sed in his hair. ]\Iay he be cursed in his brain. May he be cursed 
in the crown of his head and in his temples. In his forhead and in 
his ears. In his eyebrows and in his cheeks. In his jaw-bones and 
in his nostrils. In his fore-teeth and in his grinders. In his lips and 
in his throat. In his shoulders and in his wrists. In his arms, his 
hands and in his fingers. May he be damned in his mouth, in his 
breast, in his heart, and in all the viscera of his body. May he be 
damned in his veins and in his groin, in his thighs; in his hips and in 
his knees; in his legs, his feet and his toe-nails. 



132 The Question of Romanism 

''May he be cursed in all the joints and articulations of his body: 
From the top of his head to the soles of his feet, may there be no 
soundness in him. ^lay the Son of the living God, with all the glory 
of His Majesty, curse him; and may heaven with all the powers that 
move therein, rise up against him — curse him — damn him! Amen! 
So let it be! Amen." 

This is the Inquisitorial monster who wrote: 

''When I see them drag from me the little children, the poor 
little children, and give them an infidel education, it breaks my 
heart." 



Chapter XV, 



Papal Conquest of the. United States 



Pius IX had so completely forfeited the respect and confidence 
of his countrymen, that he knew the papacy was doomed unless 
enthused with new life through new conditions; and he determined 
upon the conquest of the United States, where he not only expected 
to have an active voice in the government, but in the near future 
establish the temporal powder of the church throughout the w^orld, 
on a more extensive scale than ever before. 

The first move was made by a New York lawyer, named O'Con- 
nor, who offered $1,000,000 toward establishing a Vatican of un- 
limited splendor, at Washington, but the liberty-loving Americans 
rose in revolt like the swarms of locusts in Egypt, vmder the name of 
"''Know-Nothings," and the project w^as temporarily abandoned. 

Then the pope and his hierarchy conceived the scheme of con- 
quest by colonizing the United States with Romanists. They es- 
tablished emmigration bureaus throughout Europe, and advanced 
the money to bring thousands of young Romish couples to America, 
many of whom they married for that purpose, and according to their 
estimate, twenty-five or thirty years should have given them a 
governing population. 

Father Chiniquy wrote of his experience with this immigration 
bureau, in which he says, he wanted the French immigrants located 
on farms in Southern Illinois, but the agents of the hierarchy, who 
had the matter in charge, said: "No, we will locate them in the 
cities, and after we have conquered the cities we will take the coun- 
tr3^" Dorsey ]\IcGee, editor of the Freeman's Journal wanted the 



134 The Question of Romanism 

Irish immigrants also colonized on farms, but was met with the same 
ultimatum. 

In his eagerness to hasten the conquest of the United States, 
Pius IX became the most aggressive and despotic of popes. He 
not only approved of the war of the rebellion but regarded it as an 
entering wedge for papal sovereignty over the Southern States, 
through which he would conquer the north, and he flooded the coun- 
try with doctrines of treason against the Republic and the duties 
of its citizens, which are being infallibly taught by every Jesuit 
school in the Republic today. The following letter to Jefferson 
Davis illustrates his attitude toward the Republic: 

^^Illustrious and Honorable President: We have just received 
with all suitable welcome the persons sent by you to place in our 
hands your letter dated 23rd of September last. Not slight was the 
pleasure we experienced when we learned from these persons and the 
letter, with what feeling of joy and gratitude you were animated, 
illustrious and honorable President, as soon as you were informed of 
our letters to our venerable brothers, John, Archbishop of New York 
and John, Archbishop of New Orleans, dated the 18th of October 
last year, in which we have with all our strength excited and ex- 
horted those venerable brothers that in their episcopal piety and 
solicitude they should endeavor with the most ardent zeal, and in 
our name, to bring about the end of the fatal civil war which has 
broken out in those countries, in order that the American people 
may obtain peace and concord and dwell charitably together. It is 
particularly agreeable to us to see that you, illustrious and honor- 
able President, and your people are animated with the same desire 
of peace and tranquilit}^ which we have in our letters inculcated upon 
our venerable brothers. May it please God at the same time to 
make the other peoples of America and their rulers, reflecting ser- 
iousl}' how terrible is civil war, and what calamities it engenders, 
listen to the inspirations of a calmer spirit and adopt resolutely the 
part of peace. As for us, we shall not cease to offer up the most 
fervent prayers to God Almighty that He may pour out upon the 
people of America the spirit of peace and charity, and that He will 
stop the great evils which afflict them. We at the same time be- 
seech the God of mercy and pity to shed abi'oad upon you the light 
of his grace and attach you to us by a perfect friendship. 

Given at Rome, at St. Peter's the 3d day of December, 1803, of 
our Pontificate, 18. Pius IX." 

The pope expected that the Romish countries would follow his 
lead in recognizing the Southern Confederacy, but he had the morti- 
fication of knowing that his act was practically worth nothing to 
the South, while it revealed his position toward the North. 



Papal Conquest of the United States 135 

A few weeks later, the legation at Rome was left without an 
appropriation through which another of the temporal dignities of 
Pius IX passed away. 

While the United States was in the throes of the Civil War, 
which rent the nation from ocean to ocean, Pius IX, in anticipation 
of the victory of the South, conspired with Napoleon III to conquer 
Mexico and make it an empire under the leadership of Maximilian, 
while the real label was, Pius IX. The success of this usurpation 
involved the future peace and prosperity of this entire continent, 
especially Latin countries that had repudiated their concordats 
with the pope, and become Republics. 

To fully understand the magnitude of this projected usurpation 
of the American continents by the Corporation of Rome, it is neces- 
sary to glance at a few pages of previous history. 

The Declaration of Independence of Mexico, by Iturbide in 
1822, and acknowledged by the Ignited States the same year, were 
the facts which, in the interests of the peace and political welfare 
of this continent, led President James Monroe to issue, in 1823, that 
doctrine of reciprocity; of non-intervention w^hich has ever since 
been associated with his name, and which has done so much to pre- 
serve our nation from entanglement with European quarrels. It 
had equally preserved us and the neighboring nations from distur- 
bance from foreign powers from that time up to the year 1862, when 
it w^as maliciously violated by Napoleon III. This grand Monroe 
doctrine, under the protection of which the nations of North, Central 
and South America are resting, reads as follows: 

"The American Continents, by the free and independent con- 
dition they have assumed and maintained, are no longer to be con- 
sidered subjects of colonization by European powers. Any attempt 
on the part of European powers to extend their political systems 
to the Western hemisphere will be considered dangerous to the peace 
and safety of the United States. Any interposition by such powers 
to oppress or control the governments that have declared their inde- 
pendence and maintained it; and whose independence has been ac- 
knoAvledged by the United States, will be viewed as unfriendly to the 
United States. The political systems of Europe cannot be extended 
to»any portion of the American continent, without endangering the 
peace and happiness of the United States, and such extension will 
not "be regarded with indifference." 

After the independence of Mexico, the clerical — Roman hier- 



136 The Question of Romanism 

archy — party, under their agitator, Santa Anna, undertook to es- 
tablish a 

Central System of Govern7nent 

which would eventually lead the Republic back to a monarchical 
dictatorship, and the same suggestion, by the same clerical jmrty, 
is fomenting throughout the United States today. All State power 
was to be abolished; every State deprived of its share of political 
control, and all authority lodged in the chief executive of the City 
of Mexico. Yucatan and Texas rebelled and resolved to establish 
separate governments, which not only developed into the indepen- 
dency of Texas and its final annexation to the United States, but war 
with the United States, and the stars and stripes floated over the 
national palace in Mexico from September 14, 1847, till June 12, 1848. 

While Santa Anna, as dictator, had grasped despotic power in 
behalf of the church party in Mexico, the pope's agents were busy 
in other quarters. 

The archives of the State department at Washington show that 
in the year 1845-1846, at the beginning of the conflict with Mexico, 
a Romish missionary, by the name of McNamara, conceived the plan 
of colonizing Irish Romanists in the rich valley of the San Joaquin. 
In an intercepted letter to the Mexican President, Father^McNamara 
said: 

''I have a triple object in my proposal: First, to advance the 
cause of CathoHcism; second, to promote the happiness and thrift 
of my countrymen; third, to put an obstacle in the way of the further 
usurpations of that irreligious and anti-Catholic nation — the United 
States. If the plan which I propose be not speedily adopted, your 
excellency may be assured that before another year the Calif ornias 
will form a part of the American nation. The Catholic institutions 
will become a prey of Methodist wolves and the whole country will 
be inundated with cruel invaders." 

According to the testimony given before a committee of Con- 
gress, the Mexican Governor, Pio Pico, had issued to Father Mc- 
Namara, 13,000,000 acres, extending from San Francisco to San 
Gabriel Mission, near Los Angeles; and from the San Joaquin River 
to the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the express condition that the 
grant was to keep out the Americans. 

General Castro had armed and organized the ^Mexican Califor- 
nians and had engaged the Indian tribes to help to exterminate the 



Papal Conquest of the United States 137 

American settlers; when the whole scheme was reported at Wash- 
ington. Captain Gillespie was dispatched, as a secret messenger 
to General Fremont, who was then on the Oregon border. Fremont 
and his band tm^ned back; rallied the American settlers; levied on 
horses, guns and stores and with the suddenness of a thunderbolt, 
routed the Mexican forces. He broke up a junta which had been 
appointed to negotiate with the British Admiral Se^^mour, then off 
the coast, to establish a British protectorate, and on the fifth of July 
1846, having learned of the declaration of war between the United 
States and Mexico, he ran up the stars and stripes which saved Cali- 
fornia to the nation and completely defeated the pope's plans. 

The following year, the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo closed the 
war with Mexico and confirmed by purchase as well as conquest the 
possession of the Californias. 

While disaster followed the attempted conquest, by Pius IX 
of the Western Coast of our continent, his subtle methods in the 
Eastern part progressed more favorably, under the 
St. Leopold Foundation 

S. F.B.Morse on his return from Europe in 1834, where he had 
gone to perfect his wjonderful telegraphic inventions, made an ex- 
posure of this most infamous organization — the St. Leopold Founda- 
tion — which had been established in Vienna, Austria, by Ferdinand 
v., December 3, 1828, for the sole purpose of subverting the free 
institutions in America. 

This expose was Avhat caused the formation of the Native 
American Party, 1837, when Mr. Morse was nominated for Mayor 
of New York, but was defeated through the influence of Bishop 
Hughes, w^ho organized the Irish in that city for political purposes. 
This was the beginning of the rule of Romanists in that city, causing 
the anti- American riots there, and in Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati 
and other large cities; culminating in Philadelphia in w^hat is known 
as the Kensington massacre, and the Southwark riots, down to 1852, 
when the ''Know^-Nothings" were organized. It was Bishop Hughes 
also, who w^as the cause of the terrible draft riots during the rebellion. 

In 1847 Pope Pius IX promised to raise Bishop McClosky to 
the dignity of a cardinal, there being no cardinal in the United States, 
if he w^ould introduce the St. Leopold Foundation. This was an 
enticing bait for McClosky, who went actively to work to organize 
this 'most secretive, cunning and infamous detective system of 
Jesuitism, throughout the country." 



138 The Question of Romanism 

''I will institute a secret order that will be more stealthy and 
silent than that of Loyola:" He wrote: ''Into its ranks I will press 
those of our faith of every class, sex and chme. These shall, while 
in the perfo mance of the most servile offices, be so many spies in 
the domestic circles throughout the Union. Weekly they shall report 
all the information they have gathered, to their confessors, who 
shall immediately transmit the same to me. Thus I shall obtain a 
key to what is to be done in time to thwart their purposes, while 
the humble positions of my agents will shield them from suspicion, 
and woe be to the one that incurs the displeasure of the St. Leopold." 

The work of proscription was begun by Romish deputies. A 
system of espionage was established, and all papers that dared to 
oppose or denounce political Romanism were spotted. 

Had it not been for the introduction of this infamous society 
into the United States at that time, the probabilities are that the 
scheme eminating from the Rochester Congress of Romanists, where 
it was decided to huddle the Irish immigrants into the large cities 
and use them as means to control the elections in the most thickly 
populated centers, would never have been formulated, and these 
people who have ever since given our country so much trouble and 
cursed the moral, social and political life of our great cities, would 
have scattered westward into our agricultural districts and become 
useful, instead of vicious and burdensome elements of our govern- 
ment. 

Through the instrumentality of this soc-iety, under control of the 
frst American Cardinal, our country became overrun, in an incredibly 
short time, by papal agents, from the domestic in the private residence 
to the confidential secretary of the Mayor, Governor or President. The 
whole political, social, and moral structure of the nation became 
honey-combed by sleek and smooth spies of the pope. The press 
throughout the country was directly influenced by boycott, intimida- 
tion and often bribes wrought through this powerful clan, so that b}' 
complete union, covered tracks and ample funds begged mainly 
from Protestants, and those out of the church, besides millions ap- 
propriated by governments, under various reUgious schemes pre- 
sented through their office holders, they are today like Moses, ''in 
sight of the promised land," and like Moses; there they must haltl 



Chapter XVI. 



The Italian Corporation of T^ome 



The political events in Italy, during the pontificate of Pius IX, 
brought about by his treachery and cruel despotism, made him such 
an object of hatred by the Italian people, that his body has never 
received official burial, and even the late Leo XIII was denied public 
burial for fear of awakening the slumbering hatred of the people to- 
w^ard the Vatican. 

After the death of Pius IX in 1878, at the first meeting of the 
conclave to elect his successor, it was decided to go out of Italy for 
the selection, but premier Crispi said to a cardinal friend, in that 
case the Italian Government would occupy the Vatican. In conse- 
quence, Cardinal Pecci, was elected pope, with the title of Leo XIIL 

The temper of the Italian people toward the Vatican was such 
that Leo XIII considered it wise to keep in as close retirement as his 
predecessor, and patiently wait until the conflicts, into which Pius 
IX had hurled the church, had passed into oblivion. This wily 
Jesuit assumed the solicitous, tender, love-interest for all the world, 
especially Protestant United States, while his Jesuit detectives were 
penetrating every social, political and religious center of this great 
nation with the object of disruption and destruction. He sent out 
his anathema — curse — upon all Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of 
Pythias, and other secret societies in America, which, like an order 
from the Chinese hatchet men, meant secret war of assassination 
and with it, over the curse of the pope went forgiveness in advance 
to the assassin. 

During his pontificate there was a reign of terror among Presi- 
dents of Republics, who were Masons; Presidents Garfield and Mc- 



140 The Question of Romanism 

Kinley, of the United States, swelling the number. The old saint at 
Rome silenced suspicion with telegrams of condolence, while his 
Jesuit horde cried ''anarchists!" 

In 1892 the time seemed ripe for action and the open avowal 
of the pope's intentions, and Monsigneur Satolli, prefect of the Con- 
gregation of Studies, was sent to the United States to arrange or 
denaand government appropriations for parochial chools, and in- 
cidentally, feel the pulse of the nation with regard to bringing the 
pope to Washington, where a palace was in process of construction 
which was to be the Vatican of the United States. Cardinal Satolli 
was further vested with power never before given by any pope. He 
had absolute power to act in any crisis, with the authority of sub- 
pope — , and the crisis was fully expected. 

Hybrid men whose lives are spent principally in monasteries, 
theoretically burrowing under every Godly thing on earth that does 
not remain as stationary as themselves, cannot understand real, 
natural, live men who reach out in useful industries, for political 
and social betterment of the world, through hearts grown tender from 
love of homes and devotion to their country. They cannot under- 
stand that these great hearted, loving, loyal men can coil and strike 
with the rapidity of serpents, when the citadel of their hearthstones 
and the freedom of their fatherland are involved. They need no 
training; every one is a patriotic general, ready for action. 

The easy-going, apparently sleepy Americans awoke with the 
alertness of tigers, under the name of the American Protective Asso- 
ciation, and the Italian embassador decided that the United States 
was not quite ready for a pope. At the same time an 

Insurmountable Obstacle 
intervened. Premier Crispi, while searching in the archives of Rome 
had discovered the original document of incorporation of the church 
of Rome, which states that the bishop or pope of Rome "must be 
an Italian and his residence must be at Rome.^^ This was a staggering 
blow to many ambitious foreign cardinals, who had hoped to occupy 
the throne of Peter amid more congenial surroundings than Italy. 
But, each succeeding pope must be content with the mockery of 
power, of which the cruelty of Pius IX to the Italian nation, has 
forever doomed them. 

Mr. W. J. Stillman, formerly the London Times correspondent 
from Rome, in 1894, discussed the ''Belligerent Papacy" in the 
National Review, as follows: 



The Italian Corporation of Rome 141 

^'In case that the pope or conclave should decide to leave Italy, 
it would lie in the power of the government to break up, once and 
forever, the constitution of the papacy for all political and mundane 
ends, for it holds him prisoner by a bond he dare not break. The pope 
is Pontifex Maximus simply as bishop of Rome. The College of 
Cardinals are the delegates of the constituency, and should the gov- 
ernment see fit, on any vacancy of the bishopric, to order the election 
to be made under the original and legal conditions, no assertion of 
authority by any former election would ever regain the jurisdiction, 
and the papacy would be split by a schism which neither conclave, 
council or king could heal. The Italian church would be constituted 
by formalities as valid as those which founded the Romish church 
and all Italy would adhere to it." 

Mr. Stillman proceeds: ^'The Italian minister had but to hold 
his peace and the last remnant of the pontifical sovereignty had passed 
into the hands of the enemy. That the decision of the minister was 
a misfortune for Italy has long been evident." 

The belligerent policy of the papacy, Mr. Stillman attributes to 
its ambition for political power and temporal sovereignty. He says: 
''Its spiritual thunders have fallen flat; Italy, though Catholic, is 
still patriotic. The pope searching for temporal weapons has come 
imaer the control of the Society of Jesus, an intensely worldly body 
of grossest materialism." 

This assertion of Mr. Stillman was proven to the world, when 
Father Wernz, having recently been chosen General of the Jesuits, 
prostrated himself before Pius X, for his blessing. The helpless old 
Italian peasant, forgot to play God, and in his feeble helplessness 
raised the Jesuit from the floor and folding him to his breast, said 
that he received him not as a subject, but an equal; by which act, 
he not only proclaimed the abject hopelessness of the vanquished 
cause of the papacy, but its complete surrender to Jesuitism. 

The papacy in its impotency has thrown itself into the arms of 
the Jesuits, and the only hope of the Jesuits is the conquest of the 
United States. 



Chapter XVII. 



History of the Jesuits 



The Jesuits or Society of Jesus, whose subordinate members are 
called Christian Brothers and Lay Brothers, appear under various 
names: St. Leopold Foundation, Fathers of the Faith, Alexian 
Brothers, Xaverian Brothers, etc. This secret society was founded 
by Ignatius Loyola August 15, 1534; conditionally sanctioned 
by a bull of Pope Paul III, September 25, 1540; unconditionally 
approved by him in 1543. Myer's Mediaeval History tells us: 

"The vices of the monasteries that had degraded the Roman 
church to the necessity of reformation, also gave birth to this new 
order. Their object was to form a society whose devotion to the 
pope and energy to his cause would meet the zeal and activity of the 
reformers and rescue the endangered fortunes of the papacy." 

Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish soldier, having been wounded in 
battle, was taken to a monastery, as there were neither hospitals nor 
surgeons in those days. His injuries left him a hopeless cripple, 
forever debarred from his former life of adventure and pleasure, and 
he devoted himself to learning to read and write. There he met 
Frances Xavier, who was known as the Missionary of the Indias, 
from his extensive labors in Oriental countries. From him Loyola 
learned of Lamaism w^ith its infallible, despotic head, the Great Lama, 
with his orders of enslaving despotism; the Great Vehicle of Tibet 
that had conquered the material and spiritual things of earth through 
hypnotic power of subjugation of the intellect — planting thoughts 
in vacant minds — of their knowledge of human nature; their dis- 
crimination and far-reaching control of members, according to their 



History of the Jesuits 143 

fitness; each separate, yet all one; wheels within wheels, all revolving 
about one mighty wheel without coming in cantact, and Loyola, 
the ignorant, despotic Spaniard, grasped this pagan monster and 
transplanted it into the European world as monasteries and nun- 
neries had been years before. 

That the pagan origin and real purpose of this organization 
rriight not be known, it was labeled Order of Jesuits; or Society of 
Jesus; 3'et, the man who takes the Jesuit oath is as much a traitor 
to the teachings of Jesus Christ as Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him 
to the cross with a kiss. 

Paul III ratified this new society knowing that it was a military 
order and not a religious body; that its policy was almost pure des- 
potism. The head of the order is called General, also, the Black 
Pope. He is elected by the congregation of the society and his term 
of office is a life appointment. Mobility and cosmopolitanism are 
the very essence of the Jesuit program. They claim no country or 
home, but disrupt every country where they get a foothold. 

The members of the society must go wherever ordered by their 
superior, and strangely diverse are the offices and commissions which 
may fall to them, for the policy of the order is to control the affairs 
of the world in the interest of the Holy See, by having its members 
in all social and govermental positions. They become professors 
and private tutors, courtiers, physicians, merchants, servants, beg- 
gars and missionaries." 

Loyola describes ancient monastic communities as '^infantry 
of the church/' whose duty is to stand firmly in one place on the 
battlefield; the Jesuits, contrariwise, are the ''light horse," capable 
of going anywhere and everywhere at a moment's notice. He says: 
In those who offered themselves, he "looked less to purity and natural 
goodness, than to firmness of character and ability for business, for 
he was of the opinion that those w^ho were not fit for public business 
were not adapted for filling offices in the society." 

In other words, it is not a religious organization, but a worldly, 
working force; a political and detective force. They are sworn to 
absolute obedience to their General, and he, in the early life of the 
order, to such submission to the pope, that a Jesuit was not per- 
mitted to aspire to any position in the church, higher than ordinary 
priest. But, with their motto ''the end justifies the means," they 
are today masters of the pope and that branch of the Romish church 
w^hich adheres to the papal policy; the clerical party. Their close 



144 The Question of Romanism 

followers are ignorant, hypnotized slaves, who obey with the un- 
questioning dumbness of corpses. So far-reaching and dangerous 
are their maxims, that their ''Letter on obedience" was formally 
condemned not long after Loyola's death ''by the Inquisition in 
Spain and Portugal, and it taxed all the skill and influence of the 
company to avert the ratification of the sentence at Rome." Siztus 
V, who had undertaken, with a high hand, the wholesale reforrh 
of the company, met with such strenuous opposition that the ful- 
fillment of the Jesuit, Bellarmine's, prophecy that he would not sur- 
vive the year 1590 was regarded more as a threat than a prophecy; 
and the sudden death of Urban VII, his successor, eleven days after 
his election left a strong impression that both popes had been poisoned 
because Urban had been actively co-operating with Siztus in his 
plans. 

The next pope, Clement VIII, was also at feud with the Jesuits, 
and Bellarmine, again prophesying correctly as to his death, con- 
firmed popular supicion that all three of the popes had been fouly 
dealt with. 

Pius VII recalled them upon his return to Rome, after his long 
imprisonment by Napoleon I. 

Pius IX banished them from the Papal States, Sardinia, Vienna 
and Austria in 1848, but recalled them in 1850 and they have re- 
mained the power of the church ever since. 

History has but one record of Jesuitism. There is not a civilized 
nation, from which they have not been expelled, for treason, except 
the United States. Although the order is only three hundred and 
sixty-eight years old it has been driven from the various countries 
of the world eighty-one times! In 1560, when only twenty years 
old, its members were banished from the University of Salamanca 
through the unceasing efforts of Melchoir Cano, one of the ablest 
divines of the sixteenth century. 

St. Charles Borromeo expelled them from all the colleges and 
churches occupied by them in Milan, as also did his cousin, Cardinal 
Frederick Borromeo, in 1605. 

Through Francis Xavier their missionaries penetrated China 
and Japan, whose fruitful resources proved very attractive. They 
carried away the ovum of the silk worms in the hollow of their pil- 
grim staves and stole innumerable arts and sciences from these an- 
cient peoples which they introduced into the European world as their 
own. They gained confidence by adapting their own religion to the 



History of the Jesuits 145 

ceremonies and dogmas of the countries they invaded, with the ul- 
terior motive of their subjugation. But they also brought back to 
Europe the ceremonies and dogmas of the Brahmins, through which 
they reduced popery to the despotic degradation of Oriental Brah- 
manism. 

Louis Jacolliot, in writing of Jesuitism in India, says: ''The 
reverend fathers; Jesuits, Franciscans and other corporations unite 
with touching harmony in India to accomplish a work of valdalism. 
Every manuscript, every Sancrit work that falls into their hands is 
immediately condemned and consigned to the flames. Needless to 
say that their choice always falls, from preference, upon those of 
highest antiquity, and whose authenticity may appear incontestable. 
For two centuries has this stupid and barbarous destruction con- 
tinued, and Hindoos are warned to be suspicious." 

An article, ''Romanism in Japan," appeared in the Independent 
Leader some time ago, in which two sentences are worthy of notice. 
"The revival of Christianity (Romanism) led to fresh persecutions 
even as late as 1870." And: "Progress is perhaps as difficult in 
the face of so-called European civilization as in the face of pagan 
persecution,." 

Revival of Christianity in Japan, to which the article refers, is 
the revival of Jesuitism, but they are afraid to use that word. In the 
latter part of the sixteenth century the Jesuit fathers, led by Francis 
Xavier, went to Japan. Being men of ability they w^ere received wdth 
respect, and many of the people embraced their doctrines wdth en- 
thusiasm. In thirty years from the time they had opened their 
mission, they reckoned about 200,000 converts, among whom w^ere 
kings, princes, generals and members of the nobility and persons of 
wealth. They gained so great an influence over the governing forces 
of the country that Walter Dixon, the historian, inforrns us: 

"They got liberty to preach the law of the true God, and the 
people were free to embrace, it. Their houses were exempt from 
lodging soldiers, and they w^ere free from all cesses and taxes which, 
under the oppressive system of feudalism, the lords of the soil laid 
upon their vassels. The Japanese received very erronious impress- 
ions from the Jesuits as to the method b}^ w^hich Christianity would 
be propagated, as well as the objects of Christian missions. They 
were only to believe their creed, and let the images of the church of 
Rome take the place of their idols in the pagodas." 

Professor Griffiths points out the resemblances between Roman- 
ism and Buddhism in the following paragraph: 



146 The Question of Romanism 

"The transition from the reUgion of India to that of Rome was 
extremely easy. The very idols of Buddha served, after a little al- 
tercation with the chisel, for images of Christ. The Buddhist saints. 
were easily transformed into the twelve apostles. The cross took 
the place of the Torii. Tt was emblazoned on the helmets and ban- 
ners of thewarriors, and embroidered on their breasts. The Japanese 
soldiers went forth to battle like Christian crusaders, In the road- 
side shrine Kuanon, the goddess of Mercy, made way for the A'irgin, 
the mother of God, so-called. 

''Buddism was beaten with its own weapons. Its own artillery 
was turned against it. Nearly all the churches were native temples, 
sprinkled and purified. The same bell, whose boom had so often 
quivered the air announcing the orisons and matins of paganism, 
was again blessed and sprinkled, and called the same hearers to mass 
and to the confessional. The same lavatory that fronted the temple 
served for holy water or baptismal font. The same censor that 
swung before Amida could be refilled to waft Christian incense. The 
new convert could use unchallenged his old beads, bells, candles, in- 
cense, and all the paraphernalia of his old faith in imitation of the 
new. 

''The resemblance between Romanism and Buddhism being so 
strong, and the transition from one to the other so easy, it is not 
surprising that they made lightning progress. When they thought 
they Avere strong enough to venture it, they brought all the infernal 
machinery they had employed in Europe in makkig Romanists to the 
empire of Japan; political intrigue, priestcraft, deception, falsehood, 
treachery and the inquisition. Thousands got their choice either 
to embrace Christianity or leave the country. Thousands were 
crammed into prisons and thousands were put to death by slow tor- 
ture by those stony-hearted scoundrels who called themselves Chris- 
tians. The iniquitous operations of the Jesuits came to a crisis when 
the Christians in Southern Japan sent an ambassy to the pope, in 
1583, declaring themselves his vassels. The fact was communicated 
to the Central Government and created the gravest apprehensions. 
It was concluded that the only safe policy was to extirpate the so- 
called Christian religion from Japan, root and branch. Edicts 
were published throughout the empire, to that effect, and the direst 
persecution was inaugurated and kept up until 1587, when not a 
follower of the Jesuits could be found in the country. "^ * * 
All the tortures that barbaric hatred and refined cruelty could in- 
vent were used by the Japanese to turn thousands of their fellowmen 
into carcasses and ashes. The Jesuits could not complain, as they 
were only paid back with their own coins. Everywhere people were 
made to trample on the cross, or on a copper plate engraved with the 
representation of the Christian's criminal God. Children were 
'taught to hate the name of Jesus. Commerce ceased with all foreign 
countries except the Dutch and Chinese, and they could only enter 



History of the Jesuits 147 

the harbor of Nagasaki. The Japanese were forbidden to leave the 
country under penalty of death, and that well-known law was placed 
on the statute-book, that any person favoring or professing the exe- 
crated Christianity should be slain without mercy. The name of 
Christ was a synonym for sedition and sorcery, and for all that was 
hostile to the purity of the home and the peace of society." 

Two hundred and forty-one years later, they were opened by 
treaty with the United States, through Commodore Perry's expedi- 
tion, in 1854. 

That Romish progress in Japan is difficult, was proven by the 
following, 1906. 

''Archbishop O'Connell visited Japan as the bearer of a letter 
from the pope to the ]Mikado. He was treated with great distinction 
at the Japanese court. He went with the intention of eventually 
erecting a University in Japan, and it was understood that the letter 
suggested a papal nuncio to be sent to Japan and a Japanese repre- 
sentative to the Vatican." 

The press dispatches of September 18, 1907, read: 

"The establishment of a Roman Catholic University in Japan 
was authorized in a communication which the pope sent to the chief 
Jesuits February, 1907, instructing the Anglo-American Jesuits with 
the work. It w^as remarked that this would tend to counteract French 
influence in Japan." 

The Emperor of Japan is not a mushroom politician, and he 
forbade the erection of the University and declined the nuncio. 

The Chinese issued an edict banishing the Jesuits from China 
in 1753. Yet, foreign Jesuits are permitted to pose as ''American 
Missionaries," and are the cause of most of our troubles in the 
Oriental countries, where they are hated and distrusted. 

The French people have driven them from different parts of 
France, and their entire country, seventeen times! After the Revo- 
lution they had gained quite a foothold again in that country, under 
the name of "Fathers of the Faith," when Napoleon I, expelled them 
in 1804. They reappeared in France under their true name in 1814, 
and obtained a formal license in 1822. They were dispersed again 
by the revolution of 1830, but soon reappeared and became the 
leading educational and ecclesiastical power in France, until 1880, 
when they were expelled by the Ferry Laws, but quietly returned 
to keep the government in a state of- foment, until 1905, when they 
were again banished from France. 

Spain has banished them seven times. Spain! "the most loyal 



148 The Question of Romanism 

daughter of the church!" ''April 2, 1767, she sent six thousand of- 
them on government vessels to Italy, but Pope Clement XIII re- 
fused to receive them, and no other country would permit them to 
land. After months of severe trials and suffering, they were finally 
landed on the island of Corsica." They came back to Spain with 
Ferdinand VII; were expelled in 1820; returned in 1823; were driven 
out in 1835, and again in 1868, and they have had no legal position 
there since. 

Russia expelled them from St. Petersburg and Moscow in 1813, 
and from the whole empire in 1820. 

Holland drove them out in 1818. They joined the Belgian 
revolution in 1830, thereby securing a strong position in that country 
which they have held ever since. 

They were expelled from Switzerland during the years 1847- 
1848 and 1871. 

England has driven them out six times. 

The German parliament issued an edict expelling them from 
Germany June, 1872, but they have since gained a strong position 
there. 

Mexico expelled them in 1853-1856-1873 and 1894. 

Guatemala drove them out in 1871. 

Methods of Jesuitical Intrigue 

The following is taken from the secret instructions given to 
the company of Jesuits, " Gury^s Doctrines of the Jesuits-/' the Standard 
Book on Jesuitism, which led to their expulsion from France. (Bert's 
translation. ) 

"We must inculcate this doctrine on kings and princes, that the 
Catholic faith can subsist in the present state without politics; but 
in this it is necessary to proceed with much certainty of this mode; 
we must share the affections of the great, and be admitted to the 
most secret councils. 

''It will be no little advantage that will result by secreth' and 
prudently fomenting dissentions between the great, ruining or aug- 
menting their power; but if we preserve some appearance of recon- 
ciliation between them, we, of the society, will act as pacificators. 
But if we do not hope that we can attain this, supposing that it is 
necessary that scandal shall come into the world, we must be careful 
to change our politics, conforming to the times, and excite the 
princes' friends to mutually make trouble and war, that everywhere 
mediation of the society will be implored; that we may be employed 
in the public reconciliation; for it will be the cause of the common 



History of the Jesuits 149 

good that we shall be recompensed by the principal ecclesiastical 
dignity, and a better beneficiary. 

''To capture the will of the inhabitants of the country it is very 
important to manifest the intent of the society, that the company 
must labor with such ardor and force for the salvation of 
their neighbors as for themselves. For the better inducement of 
this idea we must practice the humble office, visiting the poor, the 
afflicted and the imprisoned." 

Americans recall the comedy of Cardinal Gibbons, in hierarchi- 
cal robes, directing President Roosevelt in the adjustment of the 
coal strikes brought about by the Cardinal's treasonable subjects; 
and they have not forgotten that Leo XIII offered to act as mediator 
between the United States and Spain and his offer was rejected. 

The taking of an oath by a Romanist: Gury, page 120. 

''Section I. Conditions required for the validity of an oath: 
1st; the intention, at least virtual, of taking an oath; because with- 
out the intention there is no valid oath." 

A Romanist, in court, is sworn to "tell the truth and nothing 
but the truth;" if he takes this oath without the intention of being 
bound by it, "there can be no valid oath," and he may swear falsely 
without committing any sin, according to Jesuit teaching. The 
majority of the 15,665 priests, secular and religious, in this country 
are Jesuits; or as Dr. Dollinger says: "poisoned with the teachings 
of Liguori," and other Jesuit perverts, whose "Theological" and 
"Moral" code is as follows: 

"The Catholic religion with its votes ought to be exclusively 
dominant in such sort that every other worship shall be banished and 
interdicted." (Pope Pius IX). 

"I frankly confess that the Catholics stand before this country 
as the enemies of the public schools." (Father Phelan. ) 

"Priests may kill the laity to preserve their goods." (Molina 
Vol. 3, Disput. 16, p. 1768.) 

"A priest may kill those who hinder him from taking possession 
of any ecclesiastical office." (Amicus, No. II. ) 

"It is lawful to kill an accuser whose testimony may jeopard 
your life and honor." (Escobar, Theology Moral, Vol. 4, Lib. 32, 
p. 274.) 

"It will be lawful for an ecclesiastic or one of a religious order, 
to kill a calumnator who threatens to spread accusations against his 
religion." (Amicus, Theology, v. Duaci, 1642, No. 118.) 

"If an adulterous priest, aware of his danger, having visited an 



150 The Question of Romanism 

adulteress, is assailed by her husband, kills the husband, he is no 
criminal." (Henriques, Sum. Theol. Giss. 23, Chap. 2, p. 474, also 
Taberna.") 

''It is for the pontiff to determine whether the king (President) 
must be deposed or not." (Bellarmine, Desput. de Contro. Chris. 
Fid. Tom. I. Ingolstad 1596; Paris 1608; Ed. Mus. Brit. Vol. I, C. 
VII, p. 891.) 

' 'Papist children may accuse their parents of heresy, althiugh 
they know that their parents will be burnt for it." (Fagundez, 
Precept Decalog, Vol. I, Lib. 4, Chap. 2, pp. 501-655, and Vol. 2 Lib. 
8, Chap. 32, p. 380.) 

"By the command of God, it is lawful to murder the innocent, 

to, rob and to commit all lewdness, because he is lord of life and 

death, and all things; and thus to fulfill his mandate is our duty. 

(Alagona, Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Theol. Compend., Quest, 94, p. 

230. ) 

Busenbaum says: "A man proscribed by the pope must be 
put to death every where, for the pope has one jurisdiction, indirect 
to the last, over the globe and even to the temporal." This same 
Jesuit educator said: "He is not drunk who can tell a scarecrow 
from a load of hay." 

"We are not so timid and faint-hearted that we fear to affirm 
openly that the Roman Pontiff can absolve Catholic subjects or 
citizens from their oath of allegiance, and we add, moreover, that if 
it be done discreetly and circumspectly by the pontiff, it is a meritor- 
ious work" (James Gretser, Opera Omnia, Tom. XL Defensio 
Societativ Jesu; Vespertilio Hereticus, p. 882.) 

"That clergy are exempt from lay power, .even in temporal 
things, is thus proved. No man is directly subject unto one who has 
not any jurisdiction over him; and the lay prince or president has no 
jurisdiction over the clergy or ecclesiastics; and a secular prince can- 
not punish the clergy, therefore, ecclesiastics are not subject to lay 
princes." (John De Dicarstelle, De Justitia et Jure. Antwerp, 
1641, Lib. ii, Tr. 1, Disp. 4, Dub. 8, N. 136. ) 

"I shall never consider that man to have done wrong who, 
favoring the public wishes, shall attempt to kill him who may de- 
servedly be considered a tyrant. To put them to death is not only 
lawful, but a laudable and glorious action. The life of a t3-rant is 
evidently wretched and held upon the tenure that he who should 
kill him would be highly esteemed, both in favors and in praise." 
(Evidently Mrs. Surratt and Booth regarded President Lincoln as 
a tyrant. ) "It is a glorious thing to exterminate the pestilent and 
mischievous race from the community of man. For putrescent 



History of the Jesuits 151 

members are cutoff lest they effect the rest of the body. So should 
the cruelty of that beast in the form of man heremoved from the state 
as from a body, and be severed from it with the sword;" — (papist 
Guiteau 'removed' President Garfield, wdth a bullet. ) ''There is a 
doubt whether it is lawful to kill a tyrant and a public enemy with 
poison and deadly herbs, but we know that it is frequently done;" — 
(Patrick Hicks, papist, attempted to kill George Washington by 
putting poison in the General's soup, during the Revolutionary 
war. )— "In my opinion, deleterious drugs should not be given to an 
enemy, neither should poison be mixed with his food or in his cup, 
with a view to cause his death, yet it will indeed be lawful to use this 
method in the case in question; not to constrain the person who is 
to be killed to take of himself the poison which, inwardly received, 
would deprive him of life, but to cause it to be outwardly applied 
by another, without his intervention; as when there is so much 
strength in the poison that if spread upon a seat or the clothes it 
would be sufficiently powerful to cause death!" (Mariana, Jesuit, 
De Rege et Regis Institutione. Libri. Tres., Morgamtiae, 1605,- 
1640, Ed. Mus. Brit-Lib, 1, Cap. 6, p. 61, Cap. 7, pp. 64, 67. Pas- 
quier, Catechisme des Jesuits, 1677, p. 550, and Rapin, fol. London, 
1733, Vol. 11, Book XVII, p. 148. It was in this manner that 
Squire attempted the life of Queen Elizabeth, instigated by the Jesuit, 
Walpole. ) 

''The clergy do not incur the penalty awarded by civil laws, 
neither can they bepunished by the civil magistrate. The civil 
laws which invalidate a will, or which render persons incapable of 
making a contract or a will, in punishment of some crime, do not ex- 
tend to the clergy, as Navarre and Saurez remark after the common 
opinion. The reason is evident. For such a law is penal, and com- 
prises a chaotic force which cannot extend to ecclesiastical persons. 
That the clergy are not directly and specially bound by the civil laws, 
either by virtue of the laws themselves or by the civil legislative 
power; for they are entirely exempt from such authority by every 
kind of right. This is the opinion of Azor and Saurez; of Bellarmine, 
and Adam Sauer." (Paul La5^mann, Theol. Moral, Wirceburgi, 
1748. Lib. 1, Tr. 4, Cap. 6, de Legibus, Notes 2, 4, 5, 6. ) 

"The power of the keys is delivered to Peter, and his successors, 
to give, to resume, or to moderate all powder; to establish kings, and 
to deprive them of their kingdoms again, if they abandon or oppose 
the teaching of the faith." (John Ozorius; Concionum Joannis 
Ozodii Societas Jesu de Sanctis. Tom, III, Paris, 1607, Tom. Ill, 
Cone, in Cathedra St. Petri, p. 64. ) 

"A promissory note does not oblige; 1st; when it cannot be kept 
without incurring grave damages," etc., hence; if on the witness 
stand, a Romanist would incur damages to himself, another Roman- 
ist or his church, he may swear falsely, or according to Gury; "law- 



152 The Question of Romanism 

fully hide a secret, because there is no other way than by equivoca- 
tion or restriction." Continuing on page 157, he says: '^444. A cul- 
prit interrogated judicially, or not lawfully, by the judge, may answer 
that he has done nothing, meaning; 'that I am obliged to avow.' 
The author quotes Emmanuel Sa, as follows: ''Any one, not legiti- 
mately interrogated, may answer that he does not know anything 
about what is asked, understanding mentally, in such a manner that 
he is obliged to tell it." 

Tambourin is quoted on page 158, as follows: "The culprit, if 
he is a priest, may swear equivocally before a secular judge, that he 
has not committed the offense; because the judge is incompetent 
toward ecclesiastics." 

George Gobat is quoted as follows: 'Tf you have killed Peter 
in self defense; you can swear before the judge that you did not kill, 
restricting, mentally, unjustly." 

Taberna is quoted on the same page: "A yriest cannot he 
obliged to bear witness before a secular judged' 

These infamous doctrines are taught all over our country, to 
Protestant as well as Romish children, and government military 
officers teach them the art of war, that they may add to their spirit- 
ual and moral depravity, treason to their country. 

Tamborini, a General of the Jesuits, at Rome, said: "See, sir, 
from this chamber I govern not only to Paris, but to China; not only 
to China, but to all the world, without any one to know how I do it." 

The bitterest enemies of Jesuitism today, are the great minds 
within the church, who realize that it is hopelessly entangled in the 
meshes of this soul-destroying military organization. 

Clemente VIII, 1592, said: "The curiosity drawn to the Jesuits 
is gathering everywhere, over all, in the confessional; to know from 
the penitent what passes in her house between her children, servants 
or other persons who are domiciled with them, and every incident 
which may happen. If they confess a prince, they have the power 
to govern all his estates, and make him believe that nothing will 
go right without their care and industry." 

Bishop Palafoz, in a letter to Pope Innocent X. wrote: "We 
have no religious orders more prejudicial to the Universal church, 
or who have made themselves more revolting to Christian provinces, 
than the Jesuits." 

In the records of the French Parliment of 1662, we read: "The 
institution of the Jesuits is inadmissable, opposed to natural rights 



History of the Jesuits ' 153 

of authority, spiritual and temporal, and on the road to introduce 
under the cloak of a religious institution a body politic, until they 
reach absolute independence of all authority." 

The same records give the following sentence, of 1762, when 
they were expelled from France: ''The moral principles of the 
Jesuits are perversive; destructive of all religious principles and 
probity; injurious to Christian morality; pernicious to civil society; 
sedicious and contrary to the royal power, and to the sacred persons 
of the sovereigns, and to the obedience of the subjects. They are 
adapted to create and excite revolts in the States, and to instill 
and sustain the most profound corruption in the hearts of men." 

Charles III, King of Spain, replying to Pope Clement XIII, used 
the following words: ''I can assure your Holiness that I have the 
proofs, the most efficacious, of the necessity of expelling the whole 
company of Jesuits." 

Monclare, in his ''Manual of the Jesuits," p. 61, declares them 
to be: "Political corruptors of all governments; flatterers of the 
great, and all their passions ; prime movers of despotism ; the smother- 
ers of reason and power of authority; enemies of kings who oppose 
them and their crooked desires; calumniators of those who love 
with sincerity the princes and the state; placing a scepter of iron in 
the hands of kings, and a dagger in those of their subjects; councilling 
tyrany, binding to its interests the most cruel intolerance, with the 
most scandalous indifference to religion and morality; permitting 
all classes of crime; serving idolatry and commending the supersti- 
tions and worship of Brahmanism, which they permit in Asia." 

Mariana, a Jesuit, concluded that the society was gangrened, 
and lost through its crimes. 

Peter Paniere, a soldier of Orleans, notorious for having at- 
tempted to assassinate Henry IV; when condemned to be broken on 
the wheel, 1595, declared that he was assisted and protected by 
Father Varade, rector of the Jesuits in Paris. 

The gunpowder plot in England in 1605, was hatched by a Jesuit. 

A Portuguese Jesuit says: "The pope can kill by a single word, 
for having received the right of cutting the throats of wolves." 

Laurez affirms: "If the pope's cause can only meet with its 
defense in the death of the prince, it is lawful for the first who arrives 
to assassinate him." 

John Azor, Jesuit, asks: "Is it permitted to kill in defense of 



154 ^ The Question of Romanism 

one's own self, whoever may be the aggressor?" "••' * "A son may 
kill his father; a woman her husband; a servant his master; layman 
his priest; a soldier his general; an accused his judge; a scholar his 
preceptor; and a subject his prince." * * ''If a man kills 
another, believing the cause a transcendent evil, that man sins but 
slightly." 

Escobar, Jesuit, declares: ''One can kill a man for the value of 
an Escudor;" i. e. $2. - * "God prohibits robbery when it is 
considered as an evil, and not when it is reputed as good." 

Jugo Lugo, says: "One can rob from all debtors if he suspects 
that they do not desire to pay." 

Toliett, Jesuit, declares: "If any one can sell his wine at its 
just value it would be no cause of injustice to the judge or malice to 
the buyer, if he diminish the measure and divide equally with water, 
drawing off his merchandise as pure wine, or without alteration." 

Carenewi, a Jesuit, says: "Jesus Christ can say to us, 'Come 
and surround me, ye blessed, for ye can lie and blaspheme,' believing 
that these were my orders that ye could lie and blaspheme." 

Sanchez, Moral philosophy: "You can swear that you have 
not executed a thing, although, effectively, it has been executed, 
understanding by it that you did not do it before you were born." 

Casnedi, a Jesuit, says: "If you believe, in an incontrovertible 
manner that you are commanded to lie — then lie." 

"Except the ecclesiastical power, there is no other power among 
men which has received its strength and authority direct from God, 
and which can affirm with truth that it may lawfuU}^ act with divine 
authority." (Benedict Justinia Tom. 1, Lugduni, 1612. In Epist. 
ad Rom. Cap. XIII, V. 2. ) 

"It is lawful for a son to rejoice at the death of his parent, 
committed by himself in a state of drunkenness, on account of the 
great riches thence acquired by inheritance." (Gobat, Operum 
Moralium Tom. 11, Duaci, 1700, quoting in Decal., Lib. Ix. ) 

"When sentence has been passed every man may become exe- 
cutor of it; and he, (the king or president) may be deposed by the 
people, even though perpetual obedience were sworn to him, if, 
after the admonition given, he will not be corrected." (8a. Aph. 
verbo Tyrannus, N. 2. Coloniae, 1615, Ed. Coll. Sion. ) 

"A man who has been banished by the pope may be killed any- 
where; as Fillincius, Escobar and Diana teach; because the pope has 
at least indirect juristiction over the whole world, even in temporal 



History of the Jesuits 



155 



things, as far as may be necessary for the administration of spiritual 
affairs, as all the Catholics maintain, and as Saurez proves against 
the King of England." (Busenbaum and LaCroix, Tom. 11, Lib. 
111. Pars 1, Tr. 4, Cap. 1, Dub. 2, Quaest. 178, Par. 4, N. 75. ) 

''If you attempt to injure my reputation and I cannot avert this 
injury unless I kill you, may I lawfully do it? Bannez asserts that 
I may. Still the calumniator should first be warned that he desist 
from his slander; and if he will not, he should be killed; not openly, 
on account of the scandal, but secretly." (Arvault, Paris, 1720, pp. 
319, 320. ) 

The ''Society of Jesus" from the nature of its monstrous and in- 
human principles, has had a troubled existence. For their crimes, 
intrigues and conspiracies, they have been banished from the various 
countries time after time as recorded by the following statistics com- 
piled from reliable authorities. From: 



Saragossa 1555 

La Palinterre 1558 

Salamanca 1560 

Vienna . 1556 

Avignon 1570 

iVvignon, Portugal, etc. . . . 1578 

England 1579 

England again 1581 

England " 1584 

England " 1586 

Japan 1587 

Hungary and Transylvania. 1588 

Bordeaux 1589 

The whole of France 1594 

Holland 1596 

Touron & Berne 1597 

England again 1602 

England "" 1604 

Denmark, Venice, etc 1604 

Milan 1606 

Venice again . 1612 

Amura, Japan 1613 

Bohemia 1618 

Moravia 1619 

Naples and Netherlands 1622 

India 1623 

Turkey 1628 

Abyssinia 1632 

Malta 1634 



Russia 1723 

Savoy 1724 

Paraguav 1733 

China . ."^ 1753 

Portugal 1759 

Prohibited in France. . . . : 1762 

France 1764 

Spain, Sicilies and Naples. .1767 

Parma and Malta 1768 

All Christendom by Bull of 
Clement XIV., July 21 . . .1773 

Russia 1776 

France again 1804 

Canton Grisons 1804 

Naples, 3d time 1810 

Moscow, St. Petersburg . . . .1813 

France again 1816 

Canton Soleure . . . ." 1816 

Holland 1818 

Brest (by the people ) 1819 

Russia again 1820 

Spain again 1820 

Rouen Cathedral (bv the peo- 
ple) ." 1825 

Belgium 1826 

France 8 colleges closed . . .1828 
Great Britain an^ Ireland .1829 

France again 1830 

Saxonv 1831 



156 



The Question of Romanism 



Portugal 1834 

Spain again 1835 

Rheims (by the people) . . .1838 
From entering Lucerne . . . 1842 

Lucerne again 1845 

France again 1845 

Switzerland 1847 

Bavaria & Genoa 1848 

Papal States by Pius IX., 
Sardinia, Vienna & Austria 1848 

Mexico (by Viceroy) 1853 

Mexico (by Commonfort ) • . 1856 

Several Italian States 1859 

Sicily again 1868 



Spain again 1868 

Guatemala 1871 

Switzerland again 1871 

German Empire 1872 

Mexico (by Congress ) 1873 

New Granada (since ) 1879 

Venezuela 1879 

Argentine Republic 1879 

Hungary 1879 

Brazil 1879 

France again 1880 

Mexico 4th time 1894 

France or some part of, 
France, 16th time 1905> 



Chapter XVIII 



What Every Triest Must Study 



''Selva," or "The Dignity andDutiesof Priests," in translation, 
was published in America: New York, Cincinnati and Chicago, "by 
the printers of the Apostolic See/' in 1889; in London by R. Wash- 
bourne; and in Ireland by M. H. Gill & Son, Dublin. It is stated in 
the notice to be a work '^composed specially for the clergy." Liguori, 
the author, being "regarded as a model of imitation, and a master 
worthy of being entrusted with the duty of educating ministers for 
the sanctuary, of every grade." 

''One may in some manner say of him," writes the publisher, 
''what was said of our Divine Saviour; he began to do and to teach." 
Of himself, Liguori says: "I am a priest, my dignity is above that 
of the angels. God deigns to hear my voice. Christian people see 
in me a minister of reconciliation; a mediator between God and man." 

The translator adds: "Our saint is already recognized as one 
of the purest lights that God has sent to illumine the world; a new 
ray has been added to his glory; he has been declared a doctor of the 
church." 

Dr. DoUinger, the learned Romish Theologian, wrote to his own 
bishop of this same doctor and saint: 

"The solemn proclamation of Alphonsus Liguori as Doctor 
Ecclesias; classing him with Augustine, Ambrose, etc., is the great- 
est monstrosity that has ever occurred in the domain of theological 
doctrine; a man whose false morals; perverse worship of the Virgin; 
constant use of the grossest fables and forgeries make his writings 
a storehouse of errors and lies. In the whole range of the church 
history, I do not know of a single example of such a terrible and 



158 The Question of Romanism 

such a pernicious confusion. Yet every one is silent on this point, 
and in all the theological colleges the growing generation of the 
clergy is being poisoned with the works of Liguori. His work 
Selva, purports to be the collected wisdom of the most skillful mas- 
ters of the science of the saints; the successors of St. Peter, and the 
councils; the organs of the Holy Ghost; in a word, antiquity, the 
middle ages, modern times^; the entire church". 

In order that we may fully appreciate the authority of Liguori, 
in the estimation of Romanists, a few facts relating to him will be 
necessary. He was canonized; that is, declared a saint in heaven, 
May 22, 1839 by Pope Gregory XVI. on the petition of a religious 
order called, ''Redemptorist Fathers," or ''Congregation of the most 
Holy Redeemer," of which he was the founder. The petition was 
first presented in 1796, and the question was under advisement for 
over forty years. The process is said to have cost the petitioners 
$50,000, But the most valuable asset of every "holy order" is its 
own saint. 

L. Desanctis, a Romish priest and formerly officer of the Inqui- 
sition, at Rome, in his "Roma Papale,'' informs us that the process 
of beatification of Ignatius Loyola cost forty thousand scudi, and 
his canonization, one hundred thousand florins. 

The '' Univers/^ a Romish paper of Paris, November 27, 1843, 
stated that the ''expenses of canonizing Mary Francis of the five 
wounds of Jesus cost $55,000 besides the price of a great number of 
pictures which had been ordered." 

The " Dictionaire Universal du XIX. Siecle/' says that "canon- 
izations at the present day have become rare; the principal cause, no 
doubt, being the enormous cost in obtaining the papal bull. * * * 
Many who have received the rank of beatification (passed exami- 
nation and been accepted) have not advanced on their journey to 
heaven because they found that honor too dear." 

The pope does not pretend to make the individual a saint, but 
for a large sum of money, he signs a bull guaranteeing that he is a 
saint in heaven. 

The Romish Calendar of 1840, which gives an account of Lig- 
uori's canonization, says, there were present: 

"His Holiness Gregory XVL; forty cardinals; one hundred and 
fifty patriarchs, archbishops and bishops; all the generals, superiors 
and members of the religious orders in Rome; about seventeen thou- 
sand clergymen of various covmtries; several kings and queens; innu- 
merable princes, dukes, earls, and about two hundred and fifty thou- 



What every Priest must Study 159 

sand of various classes, independent of Rome and its environs." 
The same Romish Calendar informs us that all Liguori's works, 
both manuscript and printed had undergone the strictest examina- 
tion by ^'the Sacred College of the Index," with a view to his beatifi- 
cation, and they declared that they had not found one worthy of 
censure after twenty years examination. ''Selva," forms one of this 
series. 

Before a man can be a candidate for saintship, it must be proved 
that he has performed, at least one miracle. The following is one, 
according to Cardinal Wiseman's ''Lives of Liguori and other saints," 
which made Liguori a saint. 

''Magdalen de Nun ze suffered from an abscess on the breast. A 
surgeon made an incision to let off the ulcerous matter, lest a gan- 
grene should ensue. A considerable quantity of it ran off, but the 
gangrene, which had already been formed, continued to eat away 
the flesh around the seat of disorder, so that the wound became 
still deeper, and it became necessary to cut away the greater part 
of the breast. As she grew rapidly worse the surgeon ordered the 
last rites of the church to be administered. In the evening of that 
day, one of the neighbors coming to see her, brought with her a pic- 
ture of the saint (Liguori ) with a small piece of his garments. By 
her desire the sick woman placed the picture upon the wound, and 
swallowed a few threads of the relic in some water. She then fell 
into a quiet sleep, and when she arose in the morning discovered, to 
her great surprise, that she was perfectly cured, and the whole of 
her breast restored, even that part which had been cut off; nor did 
she ever afterwards suffer any pain or inconvenience from it." 

In discussing the two powers claimed for the Romish priesthood; 
the powder after confession "of changing the sinner, from an enemy, 
into the friend of God, and from a slave of hell, into an heir of Para- 
dise;^^ and the "consecration of the wafer into the actual body and 
Mood, hones and nerves, soul and divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ;'^ 
Liguori says: 

"The celebration of the mass has the same value as the death 
of Christ on the cross. Of this we are assured by the Holy Church 
in the collect for the Sunday after Pentecost: 'As many times as 
this commemorative sacrifice is celebrated, so often is the work of 
our redemption performed.' The same redeemer who once offered 
himself on the cross is immolated on the altar by the ministry of the 
priest. 'For the victim is one and the same,' says the Council of 
Trent, 'the same now offering by the ministry of priests, who then 
offered himself on the cross; the manner alone of offering being 
different.'" 



160 The Question of Romanism 

Professor Donovan, of the Romish Theological college, May- 
nooth, Dublin, in his translation of the Trent Catechism, says on 
this same subject: 

''The faithful are to be made acquainted with the exalted dig- 
nity and excellence of the sacrament in the highest degree, which 
is the priesthood. Priests and bishops are, as it were, the inter- 
preters and heralds of God, commissioned in his name, to teach man- 
kind the law of God and the precepts of Christian life. They are 
the representatives of God on earth. Impossible, therefore, to con- 
ceive a more exalted dignity or functions more sacred. Justly, 
therefore, are they called not only angels but Gods, holding as they 
do, the place and power of God on earth. But the priesthood, at all 
times an elevated office, transcends, in the new law, all others in dig- 
nity. The power of consecrating and offering the body and blood of 
our Lord, and remitting sins, with which the priesthood of the new 
law is invested, is such as cannot be comprehended by the human 
mind, still less is it equalled or assimilated to anything on earth.'' 
(After, perhaps, the canons and decrees of the Council of Trent, this 
''catechism'' is the most authentic document of the Romish church. ) 

Dr. Vaugn, a Romish archbishop of Westminster, England, in 
his pamphlet "On the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass," thus describes 
the process: 

'^The holy sacrifice of the mass is the most solemn and divine 
act of Christian religion that can be performed on this earth. It is 
nothing less than the offering of Jesus Christ of Himself as a sacri- 
fice of God for us sinners. The two subjects, the death of our Lord 
and the holy mass are inseparably connected, the sacrifice of the 
cross and that of the altar being absolutely identical in the divine 
offerer and the victim offered. "^ * It is an article of faith 
that Jesus Christ, Himself, is the chief priest and principal offerer 
of the mass. * * Finally, the council of Trent has defined 
that the sacrifice of the mass is 'the same' as the sacrifice of Calvary. 
It is 'the same' because there is a numerical identity in the divine 
and ever blessed victim which is offered; and thus, in all that is es- 
sential to sacrifice; a priest and a victim; the two sacrifices are espec- 
ially one and the same. ^ * Once master the truth that 
Jesus Christ is the chief priest at the altar, and all difficulties dis- 
appear." 

This declares every priest, while performing mass, to be Jesus 
Christ, Himself! In the sacrifice on the cross Christ "died, was 
buried and ascended into heaven"; the priest lives to perform the 
mass daily. Besides to sacrifice is to kill or immolate a man or 
beast; to shed blood; while the ceremony of the mass is to create a 
live substance; "the bodv and blood; bones and nerves; soul and 



What every Priest must Study 161 

divinity", and after worshiping the consecrated elements, 
the priest, who claims the power of God while performing the miracle, 
does not kill, but turns cannibal, and eats the living God! 

The pagan reUgions of the world never produced the equal of 
this supreme moral idiocy; nor the cannibals of the South Sea Islands 
more brutal savagery than this mystery of the mass, which was con- 
ceived in the dark ages of grossest materialism; added to and con- 
firmed by the Council of Trent. 1439. 

The only authentic history relating to this ceremony is found in 
the Roman Catholic and Protestant Testaments, St. Matthew, chap. 
XXVI. , verses 2'6, 27, 28. ''And whilst they were at supper, (the 
last supper) Jesus took bread, and blessed, and broke: and gave to 
his disciples and said: 'Take ye, and eat: This is my body.^ And 
taking the chalice he gave thanks: and gave to them, saying: 'Drink 
ye all of this. For this is my blood of the new testament which shall 
be shed for many unto remission of sins." 

Taking this in its most literal sense, the ceremony of the mass 
does not follow Christ's teaching, for in the Romish ceremony the 
communicants get only a wafer, while the priest takes the wine, yet 
Christ said: "Drink ye ALL of this." 

The Wafer God Three Thousand Years Ago 

In the religious ceremonies of the Roman pagan god, Bacchus, 
a consecrated wafer marked with a cross was used in the temple of 
Bacchus, as it now is by Romanists and Ritualists. Two buns 
crossed, used in the Bacchi orgies were found at Herculaneum, the 
crossed cakes being sacred to the god in the mysteries. Indeed 
they were common in pagan worship. Cecrops, the founder of Ath- 
ens, offered a sacred cake or bun to Jupiter. A similar offer was 
made to Hygeia, the goddess of health and also to Astarte — Ash- 
toreth, " heaven^ s queen and mother both," but her majesty is now bet- 
ter known as the Madonna of Rome — ■) the Virgin Mary, mother of 
heaven. 

That this offering of a consecrated cake or wafer was also a com- 
mon custom in Palestine six hundred years before Christ, is proven 
by the words of Jeremias, Roman Catholic Bible, chap. XII. v. 18. 
Ibid: Jeremiah, Protestant Bible. 

"The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and 
the women knead the dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, 
and to offer libations to strange gods, to provoke me to anger." 



162 The Question of Romanism 

In India, also, just before the mutiny, ^'the round cake" was, as 
a religious rite, passed from hand to hand. 

To return to Selva, Liguori tells us that ''Sportsmen employ 
decoy birds, that is birds that are bound so that they cannot fly 
away, and the devil employs the authors of scandal to catch souls 
in his net." ^ * 'But,' says Caesar of Aries, 'the devil s eks 
in a special manner to employ for his decoys, scandalous priests,' 
hence this author calls them 'decoy birds,' whom the devil usually 
incites to catch others." 

Any sportsman can tell the decoy birds, but how can Romanists 
tell "decoy priests", who Liguori says, "work for the devil?" It is 
strange that the Creator forgot to label these men with whom he left 
the keys of heaven and hell! Surely, the "decoy priests" who work 
for the devil can only have the keys to hell! How are the faithful 
to know which door will be opened to them? 

The practice of the theory of transubstantiation (converting 
the wafer into the actual presence), by the "decoy priests" becomes 
a very serious matter to those who depend upon it for their souls' 
salvation. Liguori says: "There are many circumstances, appar- 
ently trivial, which would prevent a change of substance of the ele- 
ments, which would leave nothing , in the mass but simply bread and 
wine. The Council of Trent at its thirteenth session declared: 
'There remains no room to doubt that all Christ's faithful people 
should pay to this most holy sacrament, in their veneration, the ven- 
eration which is due to the true God;' and the ninth canon of the 
fourteenth session curses all who deny this theory. Specially, it is 
asserted that, in order to give validity to a Roman sacrament 'a 
right intention of the priest is absolutely necessary.' Therefore, if in- 
tention is absent, no change takes place, and people give divine wor- 
ship to a wafer. ^ ^ ^-^^ Some priests begin mass as if the holy 
sacrament were common bread." 

The lately beatified Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, said: "It can- 
not be doubted that if there is nothing in the Eucharist except 
bread, the whole church through fifteen centuries has been idolatrous. 
Hence it follows that those who, before us, adored the sacrament are 
all to a man condemned, for they will have been adoring the creature 
bread in the place of Christ." 

Luther says that when in Rome, he heard priests, instead of us- 
ing the words of consecration, say over the elements: ^' Bread thou 
art and bread thou wilt remain." The most astonishing part of this 



What every Priest must Study 163 

miracle is that priests, even in mortal sin, without faith, suspended 
or excommunicated, can validly consecrate. A priest without faith 
is a heretic. Can he hold the intention required of an officiating 
priest? Cardinal Bellarmine in his *'De Justificatione," (Lib. III. 
V. VII., col. 846, Tom. IV., Paris, 1608, ) knocks all the props under 
this pagan sacrament, which is such a libel on human intelligence, 
by saying: 

. ''No one can be certain, with certainty of faith, that he receives 
a true sacrament, since a sacrament cannot be celebrated without 
the minister's intention, and no one can see the intention of another." 
He goes yet further: ''Even priests' orders may be doubted, which 
depend on the validity of the ordaining bishop. If we consider in 
bishops their power of ordination and jurisdiction, we have no more 
than a moral certainty that they are true bishops." 

Could there be a more clownish comedy than this corporation 
of Rome, playing fast and loose with God? By the testimony of its 
leaders, the salvation of every soul in the church depends upon the 
intention of the officiating priest! If the officiating bishop should 
for an instant forget what he was doing and carelessly go through 
the ceremony of consecration, without the intention of making the 
man before him a priest or bishop, the ceremony would be void and 
the man would remain a mere man, without the power to convert 
the wafer into the actual presence of flesh and blood, and the faithful 
would get nothing but bread. According to their faith this would 
throw them completely out of the procession heavenward and would 
leave them in the condition of the unfortunate man who thought he 
was a priest, but was only a drunken Irishman. It would take the 
entire family a century to get these innocent victims out of purga- 
tory or hell; w^hile the poor priest never would get out, for being, as 
Liguori says, "the most sublime of all created things a divine man;" 
no one would dream that he had got dumped into one of his own 
holes of torment because the ordaining bishop forgot to have the 
intention of making him a priest. 

(Selva, p. 26, ) Liguori expatiates on the grandeur of priestly 
power: "With regard to the power over the real body of Jesus 
Christ, it is of faith that when they pronounce the words of consecra- 
tion, the Incarnate Word has obliged himself to obey and to come 
into their hands under the sacramental species." 

■Mark the words: ''Obliged himself \" Since the Brahmin 
priests, over 6,000 years ago, wiped out the lofty worship of one 



164 The Question of Romanism 

supreme Cm or God, and substituted their accursed laws for the en- 
slavement, defilement and degeneracy of their people by creating 
themselves gods over church and state; heaven and hell; all of which 
the corporation of Rome closely copied, adding the butcheries and 
tortures of the Inquisition, God has been represented as a sort of 
mild idiot; ''decoy bird" to kill, steal and ravish; and above all put 
out the light of intelligence in the brains He so wonderfully created. 

''But/' continues Liguori: "Our wonder should be far greater 
when we find, in obedience to the words of the priest, ' Hoc est Corpus 
Meum,' (this is my body) God himself descends on the altar; that 
He comes wherever they call Him and places Himself in their hands, 
even though they should he His enemies. After having once come, He 
remains entirely at their disposal:" Waiting for them to eat Him! 
And we send missionaries out of America! 

Surely, God cannot be such an awful fool as' the priests made 
Him out, if He can get around to all the masses in time to be eaten! 
Besides, He must suffer the annoying uncertainty about being 
called, as everything depends upon the intention of the priest. If 
the priest should happen to think of the pretty girl Avaiting for him 
in the confessional, and forget that he intended to put God into the 
wafer, God could not get in Himself and He would find Himself on 
a fool's errand. Perhaps that is the time when He breathes out a 
roaring tornado; shakes a few churches down with an earthquake, 
or if he is real mad; opens a volcano. Some triffling little thing like 
that to remind the priest that he was around all right. 

Liguori continues: "The priest has the power of the keys, or 
the power of delivering sinners from hell, of making them worthy of 
paradise, and from changing them from the slaves of satan into the 
children of God. And God Himself is obUged to abide by the judg- 
ment of His priests, and either pardon or not pardon, according as 
they (the priests ) refuse to give absolution. 

"Were the Redeemer to descend into a church and sit in a con- 
fessional, Jesus would say over each (of His penitents) 'Ego te ab- 
solve, (I absolve thee. ) The priest would likewise say over his penitents, 
'Ego te absolve', and the penitents of each would be equally ab- 
solved. "^ "^ Jesus Christ has given to his priests, to rescue from 
hell not only the bodies but the souls of the faithful. '^ * The Son 
has put into the hands of the priests all judgment; for having been 
as it were, transported into heaven they have received this divine 
prerogative. / . j j f ^ | -■ i i ^ ^^^ 

"Thus the sacerdotal dignity is the most noble of all the dig- 
nities of the world. * '^' The sacerdotal dignity surpasses the 



what every Priest must Study 165 

dignity of the angels^ who Ukewise show their veneration for the 
priesthood. * "^ All the angels in heaven cannot absolve from 
a single sin. The guardian angels procure, for the souls committed 
to their care, grace to have recourse to a priest, that he may ab- 
solve them. * "^ Although angels may be present, yet may they 
wait for the priest to exercise his power of the keys of binding 
and loosing. * "^ St. Francis of Assisi used to say: 'If I saw an 
angel and a priest, I would bend my knee first to the priest, and 
then to the angel." 

Liguori seems to forget what he wrote in his ''Glories of Mary", 
when he says in Selva, "The power of the priest surpasses that of the 
blessed Virgin Mary. For, although this divine mother can pray for 
us, and by her prayers obtain whatever she wishes, yet she cannot 
absolve a Christian from even the smallest sin." 

Cardinal Manning's authorized edition, 1864, of the "Glories of 
Mary," tells us: "If we would be certain of salvation we must fly to 
Mary, "^ * that she has the power to change all hearts, * * that 
she is the certain salvation of Christians, * * the only advocate 
of sinners, "^ "^ no one can be saved but through Mary, "^^ ^ that 
our salvation depends upon Mary, ^'' "^ She is the whole hope of 
our salvation, '^ "^ no other hope is given to us, * * she is 
•omnipotent to save sinners. * ^ Our salvation is in her hands, 
* * at the command of Mary all obey, even God." Yet Rom- 
ish theologians say that Roman priests have greater powers than 
Mary! 

Selva, p. 32: " 'Holy Virgin, excuse me,' says Barnadine of 
Sienna, 'for I speak not against thee. The Lord has raised the 
priesthood above thee. "^^ "^ For this reason of the superior- 
ity of the priesthood over Mary; she conceived Jesus Christ only 
once; but by consecration of the Eucharist, the priest, as it were, 
conceives him as often as he wishes, so, if the person of the Re- 
deemer had not as yet been in the world, the priest, by pronouncing 
the words of consecration, would produce this great person of a Man- 
God. * * In producing this Man -God, the priest effects the 
same sacrifice as was effected on the cross, even though Christ had 
never been born of the Virgin Mary. (! !) The celebration of 
the mass has the same value as the death of Christ on the cross, * * 
Hence priests are. called the parents of Jesus Christ. "^ "^^ Thus 
the priest may, in a certain manner, be called the creator of 
his creator, since, by saying the words of consecration, he creates, 
as it were, Jesus in the sacrament, by giving him a sacramental ex- 
istence, and produces Him as a victim to be offered to the eternal 
Father. * * The power of the priest is the power of the 
divine person; for the transubstantiation of the bread requires as 



166 The Question of Romanism 

much power as the creation of the world. "^ * He that created 
me, if I may say so, gave me the power to create Him; and 
He, that created me without me, is Himself created by me. * ^ 
The dignity of the priest is so great that he even blesses Jesus Christ 
on the altar, as a victim to be offered to the eternal Father. * * 
It is a great happiness and advantage to be a priest, to have the power 
to make the Incarnate Word descend from heaven into his hands, 
and of delivering souls from sin and hell; to be the Vicar of Jesus 
Christ, the light of the world, the mediator between God and man, 
to be raised and exalted above all monarchs of the earth, to have 
greater power than the angels, in a word, as St. Clement says, 'a 
God on earth."' 

These maniacal ravings of a degenerate Italian Jesuit, are stan- 
dard authority and taught in every Romish theological college in 
this twentieth century. 

How alluring the position of this wonderful Man-God to a 
peasant boy without a future, who believes every 'word the priests 
teach! How attractive to the penniless noble, to be '* higher than 
kings, "^ * equal to God!" How enticing to the illiterate 
father and mother to sacrifice a son or daughter to the '' church" and 
get a clean passport for the whole family into heaven! Most of the 
priests in the United States are Irish, sons of parents who could 
neither read nor write; born in mud hovels where a book, except the 
prsijer book, never entered. Most of them are relatives of the saloon 
keepers and ignorant servants who prowl about Protestant homes 
as spies. 

Liguori: '^Let the priest approach the altar as another Christ, 
for the priest holds the place of the Saviour himself when he says, 
'Ego te absolve'. He absolves the sin. This great power which 
Jesus Christ has received from the eternal Father, He has communi- 
cated to His priests. Jesus invests the priests with his own powers. 
To pardon a single sin requires all the omnipotence of God. But 
what God can do by His omnipotence, the priests can do by saying, 
'Ego te absolve a peccatis tuis.' (I absolve thee from thy sins.) 
How great should be our wonder if we saw a person invested with 
the power of changing a negro into a white man; but the priest does 
what is far more wonderful, for by saying 'Ego te absolve' he changes 
the sinner from an enemy into the friend of God, and from the slave 
of hell into an heir of paradise. 

"Cardinal Hugo represents the Lord addressing the following 
words to a priest who absolves a sinner: 'I have created heaven, 
but I leave you a better and nobler creation; make of this soul 
that is in sin, a new soul, that is; make out of the slave of satan, a 
soul that is a child of God.' 



What every Priest must Study 167 

"He gave them (priests) his own spirit, that is, the Holy 
Ghost, the sanctifier of souls, and thus made them, according to the 
words of the apostle, his ov/n coadjutors. * * On priests it is 
incumbent to give the final decision, for by the right that they 
have received from the Lord they now remit, now retain sins. In- 
nocent III. has written: 'Indeed it is not too much to say that, in 
view of the sublimity of their offices, the priests are so many Gods.' " 

Dr. Delahogue, professor of Theology at Maynooth College, 
declares: 

''Perfect contrition is not required, that a man should receive 
a remission of his mortal sins in the sacrament of penance. (Tract 
de Sacr. Penit. Dublin, 1825.) 

"The synod teaches that although it may sometimes happen 
that this contrition is perfected by charity'', (donation to the 
priest) "and reconciles a man to God before this sacrament is ac- 
tually received, nevertheless, the reconciliation is not to be ascribed 
to the contrition without the wish of the sacrament, which is in- 
cluded in it. * >f=. He Although he, (the penitent) does not 
bring with him -that contrition which may be sufficient of itself to 
obtain the pardon of sin, his sins are forgiven by the minister of re- 
ligion, through the power of the keys." 

(Selva, p. 276:) "The confessor also stands in need of great 
fortitude, and at first, in hearing confessions of women, how many 
priests have lost their souls in hearing these confessions. We must 
treat in the confessional with young girls and young women; w^e 
must hear their temptations and often the avowal of their fall; for 
they are also flesh and blood. We have a natural affection for per- 
sons of the other sex, and this affection increases whenever they con- 
fide to us their miseries. 'But if these persons are pious, devoted to 
spirituality,' says St. Thomas, 'the danger of inordinate attachment 
is yet greater, since the natural affection is still more strongly at- 
tracted. * * If mutual affection increases, the attachment 
will also increase in the same proportion; it will assume at first the 
appearance of piety, and the devil will easily succeed in making the 
spiritual devotion change into carnal devotion.'" 

(Selva, p. 254. ) "But she is a spiritual soul and a saint; there 
is no danger. Is there no danger? 'Yes,' says Augustine, 'there 
is danger; and because she is spiritual and a saint, you ought the 
more to fear and fly familiarity with her; for the more spiritual and 
holy a woman is, the more easily she gains the affections of men.'" 

Liguori, in his famous, or rather infamous work on "Moral 
Theology," expressly written for the instruction of priests in the con- 
fessional, exclaims; 

"Oh, how many confessors have lost their ow^n souls and those 
of their penitents on account of some negligence in hearing confessions 



168 The Question of Romanism 

of women! Oh, how many priests, who before were innocent, on 
account of similar attractions, which began in the spirit, have lost 
God and their own souls! * ^' Would to God it were not so!" 
Yet this hypocritical monster leads them to this road of destruction! 
To deny the revolting impurities of the confessional is beyond 
the power of Romanists. The foul ravings of this celibate priest 
Liguori and other degenerate ' 'saints" have been ratified by the 
Sacred Congregation of the Index and are imperishably recorded. 
To condemn them is impossible, because their condemnation would 
include the pope and his cardinals. 

The Tablet, October 2, 1879, gave prominent insertion to a let- 
ter addressed by Leo XIII. to the Redemptorist Fathers, Dujardin 
and Jacques, bestowing upon them his Apostolic benediction and 
expressing his high approval of their translation into French of the 
works of Liguori. The pope wrote: '' Although the. writings of the 
holy Doctor Alphonsus de Liguori have been already spread through- 
out the whole world, with greatest profit to the Christian cause, yet 
is it to be wished that they should become still more popular, and 
be placed in the hands of all. And (quoting the bull of canoniza- 
tion) in all these labors this is specially worthy of remark; though he 
wrote most copiously, yet it became evident, after diligent examina- 
tion of his writings, that they may be all perused by the faithful 
without any danger of stumbhng." 

These works are studied as an art to meet special cases in the 
confessional, and every woman, old or young, married or single, is 
bound under pain of mortal sin, to disclose all her acts and inmost 
thoughts ''to the minutest particular" to a pupil of Liguori and Dens. 
Liguori's apology: 

"It grieves me concerning this matter which contains so much 
filthiness, as by its very name will disturb pure minds, but, oh, that 
this subject were not so frequent as it is in confession; that it would 
not behoove the confessor to be fully, but briefly instructed; besides, 
let the chaste reader pardon me if I speak largeh', and enter into de- 
tails which exhibit a more unseemly ugliness. If it appears strange 
to any one that authors, moreover prudent and pious, should have 
treated largely concerning this matter, and describe even minute 
circumstances of various cases, let him hear the most illustrious 
Ludovicus, who vindicates the excellent work on matrimony of the 
most learned Thomas Sanchez (celibate) in the following words: 

" 'Although he treats concerning the matter of filthy acts, yet 
hell is more filthv, and if the disease be filthv,itis more to be cor- 



What every Priest must Study 169 

rupt in sin.' As Peter Blessensis says: 'The author stirs up the 
filthy mire, for the purpose of curing the disease.' If men were an- 
gels they would not need such things." 

In the same treatise on the marriage state, ^^De Usu Matri- 
monii," and the subjects which the priest is compelled to enter upon; 
he is not bound to question husbands; only the wives, and as he 
describes the probing process; the confessional is the most odious 
system of espionage ever invented by cunning despots. It is the 
most flagitious outrage upon the rights of husbands and wives, 
parents and children, the sinning and the sinned against, that ever 
shocked modesty or ground trembling hearts under its fatal heel. 

Liguori says; "We must not rebuke the penitent priest who falls 
once a month" and some other trustworthy theologians are still more 
charitable. Dens, the greatest authority of all, on Moral Philosophy 
of the church of Rome, and taught to every priest in every Romish 
Theological college in the world, today, says: "A priest is not to 
he censured who does not fall more than four times a month." 

Liguori continues: ''Good confessors, in the first place, begin 
to investigate the cause and seriousness of the disease, by interroga- 
tion concerning the habit of sinning, the time, place, the person with 
whom and the combination of circumstances. For thus they are 
able to correct penitents; to dispose them to absolution and to apply 
salutary remedies." He cites the case of a married woman who has 
committed adultery: "It is asked whether an adulteress can deny 
adultery to her husband: She is able to assert equivocally, that she 
did not break the bond of matrimony, which truly remains, and if 
sacramentally, she confessed adultery, she can answer: 'I am inno- 
cent of this crime, because by confession it was taken away. But if 
the confessor, himself, is the delinquent,' he asks: "Is a priest who 
has often, unhappily, consented to these impurities, bound to re- 
sign his office? It is probable that he is not bound, provided that he 
use due means to fortify himself." (That he is not found out). 
"The same is said concerning a priest who ofttimes may have fallen 
into distress on hearing confession." 

The Jesuit Gury endorses this theory, and adds: "Having told 
this lie, she (the wife) can again obtain absolution for the lie!" 
(Casus Conscien. ) 

Liguori puts another case: "It is inquired whether a confessor 
ought to be denounced who consents to a woman soliciting him, in 
consequence of fear caused by her, that she would accuse him unless 



170 The Question of Romanism 

he consent. Hurted denies that he should be denounced, because 
ecclesiastical law does not oblige when a great fear intervenes. How- 
ever, this reason is weak, because such a fear is not considered griev- 
ous, for judges really do not give credence to every accusing woman. 
But more justly it can be said, that this confessor is not to be de- 
nounced because in truth, he did not solicit, but v/as solicited." 

This confessor makes a mistake in the role he is playing; it should 
be labeled Adam, instead of Christ. 

The mind is master of the body ; debauch that, and the creature 
is robbed of all moral responsibility. "Who can bring a clean thing 
out of an unclean?" * * ''Does a fountain send forth at the same 
time sweet water and bitter?" * * ''Can a man hide fire in his 
bosom and not burn?" 

Desantis asks: "How can it happen otherwise if immorality, 
thanks to the confessional, is reduced by Romish priests, to scientific 
principles? The most shameless hbertines could not read without 
blushing, the filth which is contained in the books of Romish Theo- 
logy] and it is upon these books that the education of the young 
clergy in the seminaries, is founded. These youthful minds, fervid, 
and abnormally excited by forced privations, after four years de- 
voted to the study of all possible and imaginary indecencies; what 
will be their conduct when, in the vigor of youth, they find them- 
selves all alone with a beautiful young girl, or a young bride who lays 
open her heart, and entrusts such youths with all her weaknesses? 
Unhappy victims of the confessional, it is for you to answer!" 

Ex-priest Slattery says: "It may be interesting to know that 
no priest takes a vow of celibacy or chastity. * "^ The or- 
daining bishop reads an exhortation in Latin, when about to give 
the order of sub-deaconship, at which time they are bound to celi- 
bacy. After the exhortation the candidates prostrate themselves 
on the ground, and this prostration makes them celibates. That 
is all the vow, which properly speaking is no vow J' 

"Who a Priest Is." (Church Progress.) 

"There is in every parish a man who has no family, but who 
belongs to every family, a man who is called to act in the capacity 
of witness, council or agent in all the most important acts of civil 
life; a man without whom none can enter the world or go out of it; 
who takes the child from the bosom of its mother and leaves it only 
at the tomb; who blesses or consecrates the crib, the bed of death 
and the bier; a man that little children love and fear and venerate, 



What every Priest must Study 171 

whom even unknown persons address as "Father," at the feet of 
whom and in whose keeping all classes of people come to deposit 
their most secret thoughts, their most hidden sins; a man who is by 
profession the consoler and the healer of all the miseries of soul and 
body, through whom the rich and the poor are united; at whose door 
they knock by turns, the one to deposit his secret alms, the other to 
receive it without being made to blush because of his need; the man 
who, being of himself of no social rank belongs to all indiscriminate- 
ly-^to the inferior ranks of society by the unostentatious life he 
leads, and often by humble birth and parentage; to the upper classes 
by education often by superior talents and by the sublime senti- 
ments his religion inspires and commands; a man who knows every- 
thing, who has the right of everything, from whose hallowed lips 
words of divine wisdom are received by all with the authority of an 
oracle, and with entire submission of faith and judgment." 

"The priest is like the continuation of Christ, he is anointed 
with the same priesthood, at the same work, with the same sacra- 
ments, offering the same sacrifice. Every family should beseech 
God to take at least one of its members to the altar." Catholic 
Telegraph. 



Chapter XIX. 



Auricular Confession and its Origin 



''Popery/' says Cecil, "is the masterpiece of satan, and "auricular 
confession is the chef-d'oeuvre" — chief work— "of the whole mys- 
tery of iniquity." 

History tells us that in A. D. 250, through the fierce persecu- 
tions of Decius, there were many who had fallen from the Christian 
faith, among whom were persons of different grades of criminality. 
As public penance was the law in all the churches for each notor- 
ious offender, a minister was designated in each center of population 
to hear the crimes of apostates that they might be classified and thus 
be enabled, according to the custom of the times, to take their proper 
places among the sad ones at the door, or inside the porch, or near 
the pulpit on their knees; these being the grades of their sinfulness. 
In A. D. 290, one presbyter attended to this duty for all Constanti- 
nople. The office survived the social conditions which made it nec- 
essary, and continued to fix the grade of public penitents. The 
presbyter attending to this duty was known as the Penitentiary 
Confessor. 

"A certain noble lady, who had visited the Penitentiary Pres- 
byter, was unfortunate, in the church, with the deacon. This 
affair was looked upon as the result of this sort of semi-confessional, 
and indignation ran so high that Nectarius, the bishop, abolished 
the office. This is the first instance of the suppression of so odious 
an institution, and Sozomen tells us that the example was followed 
by the bishops of every region." 

"It is possible," says the historian, "that motives of piety, and 



Auricular Confession 173 

the wish to avoid the scandal of public confession, gradually led to 
the institution of private confession to a priest. From the early part 
of the fifth century, confession of some sort was made an indispensa- 
ble preparation for receiving the sacrament, but it was not formally 
recognized by the church of Rome until 1439 at the Council of Trent. 
The decree reads: 

''Every one of the faithful, of both sexes, after he shall have 
reached the years of discretion, shall by himself, alone, faithfully 
confess all his sins, at least once a year to his own priest, and strive 
to perform according to his own ability the penance imposed upon 
him, reverently partaking of the sacrament of the Eucharist, at least 
at Easter; unless, by the advice of his priest, for some reasonable 
cause, he should judge that he should abstain from taking it; other- 
wise, let the living be hindered from entering the church, and let the 
dead be deprived of Christian burial. On this account this salutary 
statute shall be frequently published in the churches, that no one 
may pretend, as an excuse the blindness of ignorance. But if any 
one shall wish to confess his sins to a foreign priest, for proper rea- 
sons, he must first ask and obtain license from his own priest, since 
otherwise he would not be able to bind or to loose him." 

This decree subjected those who refused, to the worst form of 
excommunication, which in that age meant a horrible death and the 
confiscation of all property. 

The Roman church defines confession as ''that third essential 
part of the holy sacrament of penance which deals with the accusa- 
tion of all the sins one has committed; made to a priest or other ec- 
clesiastic duly authorized to receive it, in order to obtain from him 
the absolution or 'pardon of them." 

"This is the duty of every man, woman and child, and for the 
guidance of the faithful, in order that it may be made easier, atten- 
tion is called to the following rules : 

"1. Imagine Jesus Christ before you in the presence of your 
confessor. 

"2. Choose for your confessor a priest who has a great deal of 
mildness, a prudent zeal, and a true charity for sinners. Yet you 
must not think because you have done this, you cannot sometimes 
make your confession to another priest." This leaves the choice of 
the confessor to the individual. Any young girl becoming infatuated 
with a handsome priest; and the matinee-idol worshipers prove 
that the world is full of such impressionable young creatures; can 
select him for her confessor, and enjoy unlicensed freedom in her re- 
lations with him through the confessional. The convents are full of 



174 The Question of Romanism 

heart-broken women, who took the veil through their love for priests, 
who found new attractions and abandoned them. 

''3. Do not look upon confession as a torture of the conscience, as 
infidels, scoffers and heretics represent it, but as the humble, self- 
accusation of a child, who knows the kind compassion of his father 
(the confessor ) ; finds new consolation with every word, and will be 
sure that his father (the priest) will not be angry, but will forgive 
him gladly." 

"4. Never let a long time pass without holy confession, for by 
this means you will find it easier and will certainly derive more profit 
from it." 

"5. If you have had the misfortune to fall into mortal sin, give 
yourself no rest until you have confessed it." Yet in No. 3, the peni- 
tent is specially warned not to consider confession as a '' torture of 
the conscience." 

'^Mortal sins" relate to sensuality and relations of the sexes, 
and Dens gives two hundred and forty questions on that subject. 
''When, how, where, how often, with whom; a stranger or a relative 
or any animal — " Think of the mental condition of a man; label 
him priest or devil, who can go into a box and ask these foul ques- 
tions — by the hour — of innocent children, wives and mothers! Dens 
tells these unnatural men, that the ''maidens will be shy at first, but 
their modesty must be overcome,' ' and in overcoming it, the foreign 
priests of the corporation of Rome must stand sponsor for the enor- 
mous percentage of Romish prostitutes in the United States. 

The Theological Works and Moral Philosophy of the church of 
Rome, as taught in their colleges, are so foul that they cannot be 
sent through the mails when translated into English. Their only 
excuse, when forced to face this fact in court, has been that they 
were written in Latin, exclusively for the clergy: but Romish 
fathers, husbands and brothers must know that the priests put these 
questions in the language that is understood by the women. 

That the entire monstrosity of the confessional is modern, is 
proven by the fact that the authors of its Philosophy are compara- 
tively modern. Peter Dens, lived and wrote his abysmal filth with- 
in one hundred and fifty years; and Liguori, his maniacal ravings 
of degeneracy, within one hundred and twenty. 

At a meeting of the Romish prelates of Ireland held, 1808, it 
was unanimously agreed that Den's complete body of Theology was 
the best book on the subject that could be published. This resolu- 



Auricular Confession 175 

tion was confirmed in Dublin, 1810, and the majority of the priests 
in the United States are Irish. 

Dens teaches that the ''seal of Confession," which means its 
secrecy, ''is more binding than the obhgation of an oath, a vow, a 
natural secret," etc., "and that, by the positive will of God." ^' * 
^'Even the Supreme Pontiff cannot give dispensation to reveal the 
secrets of the confessional," yet further on he asks: 

• "Does the confessor, relating the things he heard in confession 
act contrary to the seal? 

"Ans. If the sinner or person can by no means be discovered 
(exposed), nor any prejudice to himself happen thereform, he does 
not act contrary to the seal, because the seal has reference only to 
the penitent or sinner." 

"What answer ought a confessor to give when questioned con- 
cerning a truth which he knows from sacramental confession only? 

"Ans. He ought to answer that he does not know it: and if it 
he necessary, to confirm the same with an oath.'' 

The simple dupes of confession absolutely believe that the 
priest is God in the confessional and does not know anything that has 
happened there after he comes out, and, as Dens says: ''Acts like a 
man." Yet Dens asks: 

"Is it lawful for a confessor to speak to a penitent, out of the 
confession on the things which he has heard in the confession? 

"Ans. No, because the confessor outside the confession acts 
as a man. However, it will be lawful if the penitent give consent 
etc. 

"Is it lawful for a confessor to avail himself of that knowledge 
which he has acquired solely from the sacramental confession of 
another? 

"Ans. Although it is always unlawful to break the seal, how- 
ever it is inquired whether it is contrary to the reverence of the seal 
to do anything or to omit anything on account of that knowledge, 
which the confessor could not otherwise have known. To which it is 
answered, 'it is sometimes contrary and sometimes not.' 

"When is it contrary to the seal to make use of the knowledge 
of confession? 

"Ans. When it is attended with danger, least anything be re- 
vealed directly or indirectly, respecting the confession of a known 
person. Nay, although no such danger appears and although it be 
not known that the confessor avails himself of the knowledge, yet 
if it might turn out to be a real or apprehended grievance to the 
penitent or his accomplice, it would be acting contrary to the seal, 



176 The Question of Romanism 

in as much as confession would thus he rendered odious; for instance; 
if a confessor should from the sole knowledge or confession, deny a 
penitent or his accomplice a testimonium of morals." (Dens, v. 
6, p. 235.) 

Here it is distinctly stated, when there is no danger of scandal 
which will render the confession odious, the priest may tell what he 
has heard in confession, yet Courts of Justice excuse priests from 
testifying. It also states, that the recommendation of a priest, upon 
which many people value their servants, is worse than useless for he 
cannot refuse a testimonial of moral character, even to the most 
vicious, for fear the confession should become odious and the confes- 
sional abolished. 

^'When is it lawful for the confessor to make use of the know- 
ledge acquired in confession? 

^'Ans. When the sinner is by no means discovered (made 
known); also, when no grievance is occasioned to him or to another; 
in fine, when nothing intervenes to render the confession odious.^' 

''When is it lawful?'' is asked so often that it appears the com- 
piler's object is to impress upon the minds of the priests their right 
to break the seal whenever it opposes itself to their interests, or to 
the execution of their designs. The confessional is a private detec- 
tive bureau, where trained spies; the servants of households; report 
valuable secrets, as well as the most trifling acts of the members of 
families, both Protestant and Romish; which are acted upon by the 
corporation's managers, the Jesuits. For instance, Dens says: 

'^In like manner, if the priest should learn from confession that 
heresies are being spread in his parish; that certain vices are creeping 
on; he will be able by general instructions and monitions, to guard 
the faithful against such sins, so as not to disclose the person. 

''Is the condition of educating the offspring in heresy repugnant 
to the substance of matrimony, namely; that the sons may follow 
their heretical father in his sect, and the daughters their Catholic 
mother? 

''Ans. Daelman observes that, 'if the Catholic party entering 
matrimony under such conditions directly intended the education 
of her offspring in heresy, the marriage would be invalid; whence it 
is supposed, he says, that she only obliges herself to permit such 
education for the sake of avoiding greater evil in a community 
where Catholics and heretics live mingled together; however, we 
must say with Pontius, Braunman and Reiffenstuel, that such mar- 
riage with express or tacit compact, or under the condition that 
either all or any of the children, for instance the males, be educated 
in the sect of their heretical father, is always and everywhere unlaw- 



Auricular Confession 177 

ful, most iniquitous and grievously sinful; against the natural obliga- 
tion of parents and against the divine and ecclesiastical law; for every 
parent is bound to piously take care that the offspring be educated 
in the true faith, and acquire the necessary means for salvation; 
therefore she is hound by no obligation to permit the education of her 
offspring in a damnable sect. Nor do usage and custom, openly ex- 
isting in several places, make against this; for this compact, is 
against divine law, against which even immemorial custom operates 
nothing. 

''Take note, that if a catholic knowingly contract marriage with 
a heretic, he cannot on that head separate himself from her, because 
he has denounced the right of divorce; unless the heretic promised 
her conversion and would not stand to her promise; in like manner, 
if the catholic knows that he is in imminent danger of losing the 
faith by cohabiting with a heretic. 

If a Protestant woman marries a Romanist and does not re- 
nounce her religion at the bidding of a priest, the Corporation of 
Rome declares the marriage invalid. Any immoral scoundrel, wish- 
ing to abandon his wife, has but to say that he is in imminent danger 
of losing his faith by cohabiting with a heretic, and the marriage is 
dissolved and he is at liberty to be divorced. 

The unmarried hierarchy, who claim the only legal right to make 
marriages, not only sanction flagrant violations of the marriage laws, 
but in many cases compel them. They even compel the dying, under 
pain of eternal damnation, to remarry in the presence of grown 
children who are openly declared bastards. 

There are ''reserved cases" in confession which are appealed to 
the supreme pontiff; or the bishop for his own diocese; or the super- 
iors of Regulars; (religious orders ), of which the following is a sam- 
ple: 

'^Let it he observed that, except in danger of death, no confessor, 
though he may otherwise have the power of absolving from reserved 
cases, may or can absolve his accomplice in any external sin, or sin ac- 
tually committed against chastity; committed by the accomplice with 
the confessor himself. ^^ 

We are told that this decree was issued by the illustrious Lord 
Creusen, Archbishop of the diocese of Mechlin, and was extended 
by the Supreme Pontiff, Benedict XIV., 1741, to the whole church. 
There must have been necessity for this decree or the archbishop 
would not have been the first to scandalize his reverend brethren, 
for this is admission on the part of Dens who records it, and the pope 



178 The Question of Romanism 

who extended it to the whole church, that women have been seduced 
in the confessional. 

What is the punishment? Nonel The moral theology of the 
church provides that the seducer, except in case of danger of death, 
shall not absolve his victim, but send her to another priest. She has 
hut to change her confessor, who becomes conversant with her rela- 
tions with her late confessor. What of the confessor who has de- 
graded some man's bed and home? Nothing \ He will go to con- 
fession to his friend Father Macchi, when he is playing Christ in the 
confessional and tell him all about the filthy things he has been do- 
ing, and Father Macchi will absolve him. Then father Macchi will 
come out of the box and be a man (?) and Father Flinn will go onto 
the box and be Christ, while Father Macchi regales him with his. 
seductions and drunken orgies. 

It is difficult for a normal mind to believe that a corporation in 
this age — label it Christian or devilish — can reduce its men to such 
mental and moral idiocy. 

Romish citizens, who are leading honest, industrious lives, must 
know that while these ignorant foreigners, who have forsworn the 
responsibilities of husbands and fathers, are playing these imbecile 
tricks; they are regularly collecting from their wives and daughters, 
whom they debauch and degrade, a part of their hard earned money 
in order to keep up this insane farce labeled religion, through which 
they live idle, luxurious and A^oluptuous lives. 

Ex-priest Hogan wrote: ''I have known priests to spend the 
whole night gambling and drinking, and in the morning stagger into 
a back room and grant each other absolution." By which means 
the entire episode was not only forgiven, but wiped out. 

Father Chiniquy says, in his ^'Priest, Woman and the Con- 
fessional": 

''In the Church of Rome it is utterly impossible that the husband 
should be one with the wife, and that the wife should be one with 
the husband. A monstrous being has been put between them, 
called the confessor. Born in the darkest ages of the world, that 
being has received from hell this mission to destroy and contaminate 
the purest joys of the married life — to enslave the wife, to outrage 
the husband, and to cheat the world. The more auricular confession 
is practiced, the more the laws of public and private morality are 
trampled under foot. * * >!c j^ ^^^ beginning of my priesthood. 
I was surprised and embarrassed to see a very beautiful and accom- 
plished young lady, whom I met every week, enter the box of my 



Auricular Confession 179 

confessional. She had been used to confess to a young priest of my 
acquaintance; and was looked upon as one of the most pious girls of 
the city. She began by saying: 

" 'Dear father, I hope you do not know me and that you will 
never try to know me. I am a desperately great sinner. Before 1 
begin my confession, allow me to ask you not to pollute my ears by 
putting questions which our confessors are in the habit of putting 
to their female penitents. I have already been twice destroyed by 
these questions. Before I was seventeen years old, the chaplain of 
the nunnery where my parents had sent me for my education, though 
approaching old age, put to me, in confessional, a question which, 
when understood, plunged my thoughts into a sea of iniquity till 
then absolutely unknown to me.^ 

"As a result, she was ruined. She became the counterpart of the 
priest. She fell so low that she declared: 'I had a real pleasure in 
conversing with my priest on these matters, and enjoyed his asking 
me more of his strange questions. The hour in the confessional 
was but a criminal tete-a-tete. I perceived that he was as criminal 
as myself. ^ ' * * When the course of my convent instruction 
was finished, my parents called me back to their home. I was really 
glad of the change, for I was beginning to be tired of my criminal 
life. My|hope was that, under the direction of a better confessor, 
I should reconcile myself to God and begin a Christian life. Un- 
fortunately for me, my new confessor who was very young, began 
also his interrogations'. He soon fell in love with me, and I loved 
him in a most criminal way. * * * The questions he put to 
me and the answers I had to give, melted his heart — I know it — just 
as boiling lead would melt the ice upon which it flows. 

''You understand I have given up my last confessor. I have 
two favors to ask. One, that you will never seek to ascertain my 
name; second, that you will never put to me any of those questions 
by which so many penitents are lost, and so many priests forever 
destroyed. We come to our confessors that they may throw upon 
our guilty souls the pure waters of heaven to purify us; but instead 
of that, with their unmentionable questions, they pour oil on the 
burning fires which are already raging in our poor, simple hearts. 
Oh, dear father, let me become your penitent, that you may help 
me to go with Magdalene and weep at the Saviour's feet! Do re- 
spect me, as he respected that true model of all the sinful but re- 
penting women." 

Father Chiniquy tells that he went to his own confessor, after- 
ward Archbishop of Canada, and asked if he might forego certain 
questions. He was answered: 

" 'No! such cases of the destruction of female virtue, by the ques- 
tions- of the confessors is an unavoidable e^al. Such questions are 



180 The Question of Romanism 

necessary. "^ * You must not be discouraged when, through 
the confessional or any other way, you learn the fall of priests into 
the common frailties of human nature with their penitents. Our 
Saviour knew very well that the occasions and the temptations we 
have to encounter in the confessions of girls and women, are so 
numerous and irresistable that many would fall. But he has given 
them the holy Virgin Mary, who constantly asks and demands their 
pardon; he has given them the sacrament of penance, when they can 
receive their pardon as often as they ask for it. The vow of per- 
fect chastity is a great honor and privilege; but we cannot conceal 
from ourselves that it puts a burden upon our shoulders which many 
cannot carry.' 

'^The revelation of the unmentionable corruptions directly and 
unavoidably engendered by auricular confession, had come to me 
from the lips of that young lady, as the first rays of the sun which 
were to hurl back the dark clouds of night by which Romanism had 
warped my intelligence. 

''Had this young person been the only one to tell me that, I 
might still have had some doubt about the diabolical origin of this 
institution. But thousands and thousands after her showed me 
that auricular confession, with very few exceptions, drags both the 
confessor and his female penitents into a common and irretrievable 
ruin." 

Dying confession of a priest made on the day of his death, 1710. 
C'Master Key to Popery," p. 38.) 

''Since God Almighty is pleased to visit me with sickness, I 
ought to make good use of the time I have to hve, and I desire of 
you to help me with your prayers, and to take the trouble to write 
some of the substantial points of my confession, that 3^ou may 
perform after my death, whatever may enable me to discharge my 
duty towards God and men. When I was ordained priest I made a 
general confession of all my sins. I have served my parish sixteen 
years, and all my care has been to discover the tempers and incli- 
nations of my parishioners. There are in my parish sixteen hundred 
families, and more or less, I have defrauded them all some way or 
other. 

"My thoughts have been impure ever since I began to hear con- 
fessions ; my words have been grave and severe with them all, and all m\' 
parishioners have feared and respected me. I have so great an 
empire over them, that some of them, knowing of my misdoings 
have taken my defense in public. I have omitted nothing to please 
them in outward appearances, but my actions have been the most 
criminal of mankind; for, as to my ecclesiastical duty, what I have 
done has been for custom's sake. 

"As to the confessions and wills that I hr.ve received from my 
parishioners, at the point of death, I do confess that I have made 



Auricular Confession 181 

myself master of as much as I could, and by that means I have 
gathered together all my riches. As to my duty towards God, I 
am guilty to the highest degree, for I have not loved Him; I have 
neglected to say the private divine service every day. I have pro- 
cured by remedies, sixty abortions, making the fathers of the chil- 
dren their murderers, besides many others intended, though not 
executed through some unexpected accident. I confess that I havs 
frequented the parish club twelve years. We were only six priests, 
in it, and then we did consult and contrive all the ways to satisfy 
our^ passions. Each had a list of the handsomest women in his 
parish; and when anyone had a fancy to see any woman remarkable 
for her beauty, in another's parish, the priest of this parish sent for 
her to come to his house and prepared the way for wickedness, ^' * 
and so we have served one another these twelve years. Our method 
has been to persuade the husbands and fathers not to hinder them 
any spiritual comfort, and to the ladies to persuade them to be sub- 
ject to our advice and will; and that in so doing they should have 
liberty at any time to go out on a pretense of communicating some 
spiritual business to the priest. And if they refused to do it, then 
we should speak to their husbands and fathers not to let them go out 
at all, or, which would be worse for them, we should inform against 
them to the holy tribunal of the Inquisition. And by these diabo- 
lical persuasions they were at our command, without fear of reveal- 
ing the secret. I have spared no woman of my parish, for whom I 
had a fancy and many others of my brethren's parishes; but I can- 
not tell the number. I have sixty nepotes, (children) alive of sev- 
eral women; but my principal care ought to be of those that I have 
by two young women I keep at home since their parents died. The}- 
are sisters, and I had by the eldest, two boys, and by the youngest, 
one. The one I had by my own sister is dead. Therefore, I leave 
to my sister five thousand pistoles, on condition that she enter St. 
Bernard's Monastery, and upon the same condition, I leave two 
thousand to the two young women, and the rest to the three boys." 
Ex-priest, William Hogan, says: 

''Every Roman Catholic believes that priests have power to 
forgive sins, by virtue of which power any crime, however heinous, 
ma}^ be remitted. But in order to effect this, the sinjier must con- 
fess to a preist each and every sin, whether of thought, word or deed; 
with all the circumstances leading to it or following from it, and 
every priest who hears confessions is allowed to put such questions 
as he pleases to his 'penitent, whether male or female, and he or she 
is bound to answer, under pain of eternal damnation. 

''A little reflection will serve to convince even those who w^ould 
palliate Rome's greatest enormities, and seek to find some good in 
her infamous doctrine, of the stupendous power the confessional 
places in the hands of the priests. It furnishes the key to the despo- 



182 The Question of Romanism 

tic mastery on the part of the priest, and that of abject slave on the 
part of the layman, which stands prominent among the character- 
istics of the Roman church policy. The transfer of secrets, espe- 
cially such secrets as are transferred in the confessional, plunges 
the penitent into slavery to the man to whom they are imparted." 

"A word unspoken is a sword in thy scabbard — thine; when 
spoken, it is thy sword in the hand of another. ^^ How sharp the 
sword and how fitted for the purposes of these Roman conspiritors, 
is forcibly represented in the words of a writer in the Church of 
England Quarterly. 

''What woman but must quail before the eyes of him who has 
wrung out of her soul, secrets with which no man on earth besides 
is cognizant, who has tortured her spirit to agony, till it has forced 
from her lips words, the very recollection of which withers her heart 
and burns her cheek with the blush of shame? And what woman 
who thus quails before the eye of the confessor but must of necessity 
be already fitted as an instrument for all that he desires to effect in 
the way of influence with a husband, a brother or a son? Rome 
insists upon unquestioning obedience from her children, and she well 
knows that the first step to it is the loss of self-respect on their part. 
There is that in every man's heart which he holds in sacred confi- 
dence between himself and God — something in the sad expereince 
of every man's individual frailty, which can only rightly be told to 
God and be told in secret mournings of the spirit, which He alone 
in His mercy can understand and pity. The moment that another 
steps in and possesses himself of the secret, the blessed nature of that 
holy confidence between the soul and God is broken in upon, and he 
who usurps the place of God becomes the master of the penitent. 
Body, soul and spirit are thenceforth delivered to his will, and are 
made the instrument by which he works his purpose." 

The late E. R. Walsh, Pastor of the Reformed Catholic church, 
Brooklyn, New York, a converted monk of the order of Trappists; 
Monastery, Bardstown, Kentucky, wrote: 

''The confession box is a fountain of pollution: A nursery of 
crime: A moral cancer: A political engine: A social disturber. 

"The Romish system is a gigantic and horrible image of the 
church of God, with the pope as God; sitting in the temple of God; 
claiming that he is God. There is not a part of this Romish image 
which has not been specially designed to represent, by caricature, 
some counterpart in the eternal model which is blasphemously 
copied. The confessional was devised to supply a universal know- 
ledge of the inmost thoughts of man's heart, to the Roman priest- 
hood, which is nothing less than an attempt at infernal assumption 
of God's attribute of Omniscence. 

"The three cardinal features of the Roman system are wealth, 
power and depravity; wealth and power on the part of the ecclesias- 



Auricular Confession 183 

tics, and depravity in which the laity are graciously allowed to share. 
All these are emphatically, the direct result of the confessional. The 
Romish organization has no place for the layman; it is constituted 
by the pontiff, cardinals, bishops and priests; the laity have no ac- 
tive interest therein, but form the tail to the Roman kite; an appen- 
dage tolerated because indispensable to her dominion. The Roman 
church is a despot, and there can be no despot without the slave; 
hence the layman. The layman may indeed say: 'I belong to the 
church', but he must say it from the standpoint of the slave, for to 
be- a part of the Romish church a man must be a priest. The line 
is strongl}^ marked. The Romish church is the vulture; the layman 
the corpse on which she fattens. Take away her confessional and 
you deplete her treasury; you amputate the right arm of her power; 
you demolish her nursery of impurity, and the whole system col- 
lapses in the destruction of her component parts. 

''That she may reap a revenue from farcical remission of sins, 
she maintains the confessional as a nursery for the cultivation of 
vice; a school of sinful suggestiveness and a propaganda of carnality 
and prurience. In it she teaches how to sin and evade the penalty; 
how to sin and pay for the damage; how to sin and cover it by un- 
sinful sinning, by breaking the moral law at one end to hide a breach 
already made at the other. 

''Rome has invented and described in detail special ways of 
sinning, of which the most depraved imagination of fallen man could 
hardly conceive, and satan himself, never thought of till Romish 
theologians came to his. relief. 

"Questions are asked in the confessional of young boys and 
girls, till then uncontaminated by the remotest idea of carnal lewd- 
ness; which pollute the imagination, and seethe in the veins of these 
confessors of fornication, beastiality, sodomy and sin; questions on 
sin in its ordinary hideous formation, and sin in its still more hideous 
malformation. These men are graduates of Dens and Liguori, who 
left to the world a legacy of detailed instructions in old transgress- 
sions, together with newer and more diabolical moral atrocities. 

"Parents are requested to send their children to confession at 
the early age of seven j^ears, when they are instructed to examine 
themselves on the sixth and ninth commandments — adultery and 
falsehood. They are asked if they are guilty of immodest thoughts — 
if wilful — immodest desires, words, looks, actions, alone or with 
others — with married persons or relations, or with any thing. "^ "^ 

"The mighty power of the confessional is exemplified in the fol- 
lowing naration of priestly oppression furnished by a member of my 
church who was well acquainted with the victim, James Finnegan, 
a harness maker of Moyalty, in the diocese of Meath, Ireland. He 
was attacked by four men who, he believed, intended to kill him 
because he would not take the following oath of a "Ribbon Man". 
. " 'I, swear by Saints Peter and Paul and by the blessed Virgin 
Mary, to be always faithful to the society of Ribbon Man; to keep 



184 The Question of Romanism 

and conceal all its secrets and all its words of order; to be always 
ready to execute the command of my superior officers, and as far 
as it shall be in my power to extirpate all heretics, and all Protes- 
tants, and to walk in their blood to the knee. May the Virgin 
Mary and all the saints help me.' Today, July 2, 1852. 

''Finnegan, who had the physical proportions of a Hercules 
and few superiors in athletic skill, turned upon his would-be assas- 
sins and laid them out with an iron instrument from his kit of tools. 
Hurrying back to the village, he brought out the constabulary, 
who arrested the men before they recovered consciousness, and they 
were held to await their trial at the assizes. 

''Father Ginty, the parish priest of Moyalty, interceded with 
Finnegan on behalf of the culprits, and endeavored to induce him 
from prosecuting, but Finnegan reminded him that such a thing 
was not in his power, as the Crown was the prosecutor. The priest 
then asked him 'to go light on them', meaning that he should give 
his testimony in a favorable manner. 

"Finding persuasion of no avail. Priest Ginty resorted to threats 
and a stubborn war of words ensued, which culminated in Finne- 
gan's procuring the priest's arrest on a charge of threatening his 
life. The trial came off, and as usual the priest escaped punishment, 
but the holy church excommunicated Finnegan. 

"Those who have in this country (thank God) no opportunity 
of seeing Romanism in the full, untrammelled exercise of her domi- 
neering despotism, know absolutely nothing of the terror that lies 
in the word 'excommunication.' Dr. McGlynn and other American 
Romanists have been excommunicated yet were popular in a cer- 
tain sense. For this they may thank that American spirit of liberty 
which flows from Protestantism; but in Romish Ireland excommunica- 
tion as effectively cuts a man off from all manner of intercourse with 
everyone else as if he were placed on a rock in the middle of the Paci- 
fic Ocean. No person will speak to him or salute him on the street; 
no one will permit him to enter his house; no one will give him food 
or drink; no one will give him work; no one will work for him; buy 
from him or sell, to him. To injure his property; to injure his body; 
nay, to destroy his very life, are acts which are commendable and 
for which the 'Holy Church,' so far from holding anyone responsible; 
treats as evidence of praiseworthy zeal for the glory of God, and 
every Romanist understands directly from the church that any per- 
son acting in the slightest opposition to the above line of conduct 
is thereby partaker in the curse that rests on the person excommu- 
nicated. 



Auricular Confession 185 

''Finnegan felt the effects of this Romish anathema in its most 
direful rigor. For food to keep his body and soul together he was 
forced to depend upon the few Protestants who lived in the neigh- 
borhood. When his clothes were worn out he procured old grain 
sacks which were past use, and swathed his body in these from head 
to foot; tying them on with cords, and when in subsequent years he 
went further down the country into a Protestant neighborhood, he 
still persisted in wearing this costume, as he explained: 'I have 
walked the earth for twenty-five years, clothed in sackcloth, as a 
testimony against the false church of Rome.' 

''To show to the most skeptical, the power of the confessor as 
intermediary between husband and wife, it only remains to be told 
that for twenty-five years James Finnegan's wife never spoke to him. 
From the day that the anathema of the church was pronounced on 
him; though they both occupied the same apartments, they moved 
around as if each was perfectly unconscious of the presence of the 
other. The confessor stood between themV^ 

Priests and Romanists say, as sisters renew their vows every 
two years, they are at liberty to leave the convent at that time, if 
they choose. Few attiempt to leave, and those who succeed, become, 
like Finnegan, persecuted, despised wanderers on the face of the 
earth, and the examples have been so terrifying that the majority 
have not the courage to undertake the ordeal. 

The following extract from an article on Ritualism, in the New 
York Sun^ March 29, 1891, shows how the young ritualist priests of 
the Episcopal church are aping the Romish priests with a success in 
hideous demoralization as great, according to their age, as that of 
their models in Liguorian obscenity. 

''Confession is practiced in churches which are not deemed 
especially high. Dr. Dix, for instance, and the other clergymen of 
Trinity church, hear confessions as a matter of course. The Rev. 
Dr. Houghton of the Little Church Around the Corner, is said to 
hear more confessions every week than any Romish clergyman in 
the city. 'I send all my hard cases to him although he doesn't 
know it,' said a young ritualistic priest, who is responsible for this 
assertion. 'I am a perfect cesspool. Such horrible things are 
poured into my ears that I can hardly sleep at night when I remem- 
ber them'. 

"The ritualistic priest of St. Mary's Episcopal (miscalled) 
Protestant church on Walnut street, Kansas City, Missouri, in the 
year 1885, found himself in court, pitted against the Kansas City 



186 The Question of Romanism 

Times in a legal controversy over an alleged libel committed by 
that paper in publishing his immoral conduct in the confessional. 
It was proved that he had imposed penances upon married and other 
ladies (who testified to the facts in detail) by inducing them to submit 
to a vigorous application of his sacerdotal slipper wielded by his holy 
arm to a portion of their anatomy which he first carefully divested 
of all protection; an operation thoroughly comprehended by the 
small boy, under the painfully suggestive name of 'spanking'. A 
young girl, scarcely thirteen years old, was also produced on the 
witness stand and testified to his most fiendish conduct toward her 
in the church on one occasion. It was proven that he had made the 
church a resort for lewd women at unseasonable hours and had large 
quantities of liquid refreshments delivered there at various times.' 
Another lady who had frequented the confessional had been per- 
suaded to 'mortify her flesh' by permitting this reverend scoundrel 
to tie a rope around her body (not including her clothes) with his 
own reverend hands, which rope she was to wear for a certain space 
of time; but the impertinent curiosity of herhusba,nd led to a reluc- 
tant admission of the facts on her part, which gave the details to 
the public. The reverend confessor was only saved from uncere- 
monious hanging at the hands of the indignant citizens by the in- 
terference of the mounted and other police, who dispersed the crowd 
which congregated in the neighborhood of the church on the Sunday 
succeeding the trial." 

Jardine, the rector, was expelled from the church, and was all 
but forgotten, when his memory was revived by his suicide. 

The common circumstance of the conversion of Episcopal 
clergymen to Romanism, is an advertising scheme; for a large ma- 
jority of the Ritualistic clergy are priests and Jesuits. The priest 
at his ordination swears: "I do further promise that, notwithstand- 
ing that I may be permitted by dispensation to assume any hereti- 
cal religion for the propagation of the Mother Church's interest", 
.etc. The Jesuit, more independent, does not need dispensation, he 
swears: "I do further promise and declare that notwithstanding 
that I am dispensed with, to assume any religion heretical for the 
propagation of the mother church's interests, etc." 



Chapter XX. 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 



Priest Caraher, during a lecture in defense of Romish monas- 
teries, nunneries and convents, given at the Metropohtan Temple, 
San Francisco, January 21, 1894, said: 

^^ There are no persons in the wide world today so defenseless as 
the Roman Catholic nuns and sisters. They can use neither hand 
nor foot; voice nor pen in self-defense.'^ 

At that time it was estimated that there were 84,000 women in 
the United States who were nuns or sisters, and there was an effort 
being made to open the convents. Since then, France has abol- 
ished these institutions and Spain having forced all foreign orders 
out of the country, the financial managers of the corporation of 
Rome have brought to this country many of the men and women 
who were considered a menace to the Republic of France and Mon- 
archical Spain, as well as importations from various other counties, 
and it is safe to estimate the working force of wageless women slaves 
of the church of Rome in this Republic, as 100,000. 

Had priest Caraher told of a slave girl imported from China or 
Japan and kept in a cellar at hard work fourteen to sixteen hours 
a day, there would have been a mob to release her, and the press 
throughout the country would have gone into hysterics over slavery 
and the yellow peril. Yet a man from Ireland, himself a slave of 
the same system, announced that the thousands of slaves in their 
work-houses ^'can use neither hand nor foot, voice nor pen in self- 
defense, and there was not an adverse comment by the press. 



188 The Question of Romanism 

I spent six months at St. Katheiine's Dominican convent in 
Benicia, Cal., and my youthful experiences gave me a key to con- 
vent hfe which has guided me to famihar intercourse with these 
veiled women of spiritual tragedies. Shortly after I went there. 
Sister Margaret, a beautiful Spanish nun, escaped under cover of a 
storm, but the Dominican friars were immediately in pursuit, and 
she was captured while running for her life over the wet hills. It 
was her second attempt and she was locked up and starved on bread 
and water, until she was completely subjugated; then she was sent 
back to the kitchen to do the hardest and most menial work, and 
her tear-stained face has haunted me ever since. 

Another Spanish girl, a niece of General Vallejo, took the white 
veil in defiance of the wishes of her family, which count for nothing 
in the despotic system of Romanism. She died before the expira- 
tion of the first year of her no vitiate/ which is two years in the Domi- 
nican convent, and was buried before daylight the next morning 
in the sister's graveyard within the enclosure of the grounds. It 
was a convent episode of which the outside world knew nothing, 
not even her parents. Three months later, a brother came to see 
her, but being refused upon one pretense after another, he drew a 
revolver and demanded to be taken to her, then he was told that 
she was dead. He swore eternal vengeance and threatened to tear 
the convent down, but his people were devout Romanists, and the 
matter was hushed up. Another nun died during the time I 
was there and was buried with the same secrecy and defiance of 
law, which is the practice in all convents. 

There was also a little sister there, named Vencentia, who was 
only fifteen years old, but was serving her last year as a novice. It 
was said that she had been given to the sisters when only two and a 
half years old. 

Mother Goemare, the superior, had been brought from a Domin- 
ican convent in France, in 1850, to establish this first convent in 
California. She was a large, angular creature who was generally 
thought to be a man. She was tall and erect, and walked with the 
heavy tread of a man. She had a coarse, deep voice; took snuff, 
and when she blew her proboscis into her huge bandana, it re- 
sounded throughout the entire building. She certainly neither 
looked nor acted like a woman, and it was said, because she had be- 
come such a drunkard, she was deposed and Sister Louise was ap- 
pointed Superior. 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 189 

]\lother Louise was a beautiful, graceful Irish woman of little edu- 
cation, but an ideal nun, whom the girls adored. She was very 
frail and had a racking cough, which was attributed to consump- 
tion, but I saw her twenty- five years later, and while still frail, she 
seldom coughed. She told me that a miracle had been performed 
on her, and I believe she meant it. She said that she had prayed 
to the blessed Virgin to help her, and the blessed Mother told her 
that she had a floating lung; that one lung was loose and was float- 
ing about in water; after that she prayed constantly and the Virgin 
performed a miracle, by drying up the water, and the lung attached 
itself again. 

This same saintly Mother Louise told us there were times when 
it was admissible to lie, and she recounted what all convent children 
learn, the case of St. Francis, of whom Sanchez, (Lib. 3, Cap. 6, 
p. 2, ) says: "St. Francis used the equivocation which is attributed 
to him, when being interrogated by officers of justice, if a malefac- 
tor whom they sought had passed that way. He answered, putting 
his hands in the sleeves of his gown, 'He has not gone this way', 
meaning where his hands were. He might also have answered: 'He 
has not passed this way,' intending the particular place where his 
feet were.'^ 

The origin of Monasteries is undoubtedly traceable to the 
Scribes, a body of men who were frequently mentioned in the Bible. 
They, with the priests, were, as a rule, the only ones who could read 
and write, and to them we owe the records of antiquity. It is said 
there were more than four hundred employed in one monastery, 
four hundred years before the Christian era; writing in vellum and 
papyrus and engraving upon stones. These works, as revealed by 
ancient inscriptions found in southwestern Asia and Egypt, relate 
principally to priests and religious ceremonies. Pagan priests were 
always illustrated as wearing peculiar habits or costumes, which 
indicated their caste or office in the temples, and they w^ere closely 
copied by the Greek and Roman pagan priests. Later, the Greek 
and Roman Catholic priests adopted the same style of vestments 
and adhered so minutely to pagan ceremonies, that Father Hecker, 
in writing from Tibet a few years ago, described the form of worship 
in the Buddhist temples as so much like that of the Roman church 
of today, that he thought the devil had preceded him and instituted 
high mass. Even the intoning of the mass and ritualistic service 
is a perfect imitation of the Buddhist form. 



190 The Question of Romanism 

Many of the ancient priests are represented with their heads 
tonsured or shaved, which is the custom among Brahmin and Budd- 
hist priests, while the Roman orders that follow this distinctive mark, 
claim that it is in imitation of the crown of thornes worn b}^ Jesus 
of Nazareth. 

The workmanship of the Scribes proves their usefulness to the 
world in the unlettered past, and while the introduction of printing, 
in the sixteenth century did away with their vocation, their knowl- 
edge made them valuable allies of the priests, who jealously guarded 
from the masses, all avenues of learning which might weaken their 
own claim to inspired knowledge as men-gods. 

There were no monasteries or nunneries in Europe until Pope 
Siricius (384-399 ) introduced celibacy of the priesthood. Convents 
are modern institutions. The women were originally all cloistered 
nuns, who never left their nunneries, but the sisterhoods of the con- 
vents mingle with the world in all kinds of enterprises under the 
labels of religion and charity. Monasteries and nunneries, as mys- 
teriously sacred abodes, have played important parts in the history 
of the past as fortified retreats where the superstitions dared not 
enter, and today, the same sacred superstition shields their unnatural, 
inhuman despotism from justice. 

The confraternities of these institutions, for every order of 
monks, friars, Jesuits and brothers, has its accompanying order of 
women, through the traditions of ages have been regarded as 
learned people, although fully sixty per cent are uneducated, if not 
wholly illiterate. 

Monasteries and convents are generally understood to be holy 
retreats where life members of holy orders of the church of Rome live 
holy lives, but the history of every country, including the United 
States, declares that these "holy'' labels cover abysmal horrors 
which are beyond the understanding of normal minds. 

There is no discrimination in admitting inmates. The educated 
and ignorant, the refined and coarse are placed under the' same 
ruling and discipline, regardless of fitness. It is a common thing 
for an illiterate to be placed over a sensitive, refined girl, that the 
mortification of her soul may be more acute, and the utter lack of 
mental occupation, aside from the brain-benumbing repetitions of 
senseless forms, makes them restless, suspicious and jealous to a 
degree of hatred that can scarcely be imagined. They become 
avenging spies upon one another, as merciless as a pack of wolves. 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 191 

Many of these holy retreats are madhouses of rehgious fanatics 
and iUiterate degenerates. They are barbarous institutions of a 
ceUbate Brahmin priesthood and as much a part of paganism as the 
smouldering incense before the Chinese Joss. The oldest today are 
where they originated in India, Tibet and China, where there are 
whole settlements of lamaseries, as Oriental monasteries are called; 
crowded with illiterate, degenerate, drunken, opium-soaked monks, 
whqse records far anti-date the Christian era. 

Oriental history tells that King Srong Tsan Gampo, a religious 
bigot, went from India to Tibet accompanied by his two queens, 
the one Bridsun, a princess from Nepal, the other named Wan Ching, 
a princess from China, who shared their lord's religious zeal. They 
brought with them sacred relics, books and pictures, for whose 
better preservation and honor two large monasteries were erected 
and opened and dedicated with much ceremony. These are the 
cloisters of La Brag and Ra Mochay. Although much changed and 
enlarged they are still the most famous and sacred abbeys in Tibet, 
and the glory of Lhasa. In after times the two queens became 
semi-divine personages (saints ) and are worshipped under the names 
of the two Dara-Eke, the "divine mothers." Representing, respec- 
tively, divine love and divine vengeance. The former of the two 
is worshipped by the mongolians as Okkin Tengri, 'Hhe Virgin god- 
dess," but in Tibet and in China the role of the divine Virgin is 
filled by Kwan Yin, a personification of the '^ Heavenly word," who 
is often represented with a small child in her arms. Srong Tsan 
Gampo, also, became a saint. 

The government of the United States suppressed Chinese im- 
migration for the following reasons: 

1. ''Because they are aliens who defy American laws, by hav- 
ing laws and courts of their own, which are presided over by their 
own judges who pass sentence in secret." 

2. ''They are a menace to our most sacred institutions; homes— 
which they ignore and refuse to imitate." 

3. "They refuse to associate with the American people in 
every particular, even their mode of dress." 

4. "They add nothing to the wealth or progress of the country 
but send their earnings back to China." 

Place the religious orders of the church of Rome un(';er the same 
line of reasoning and they fit remarkably well. 

-1. Fully seventy- five per cent of the men and women in 
Romish institutions "are aliens who defy American laws by having 



192 The Question of Romanism 

laws and courts of their own, which are presided over by their own 
judges, who pass sentence in secret and execute punishment in secret." 
Not one of them recognizes any law or court on earth, but their 
Father Director General, or their Mother Director General, in Europe, 
who in turn reports to the ''Congregation of Regular Discipline," at 
Rome. ) 

2. ''They are a menace to our most sacred institutions; homes — 
which they ignore and refuse to imitate." 

3. '"They refuse to assimilate with Americans in every par- 
ticular, even their mode of dress." 

4. "They add nothing to the wealth or progress of the country." 

The money which they do not send to their foreign masters is 
invested in valuable suburban properties where it can lie idle and 
generally untaxed, for fifty or one hundred years to eventually prove 
a stumbling block to the human race. 

On the question of money, the Chinese are preferable to monks 
and nuns. They labor for the money they earn, while the conventual 
corporations acquire vast wealth through illegal appropriations from 
Congress and Legislatures; incessant and merciless tax upon the 
poor; the labors of their low caste Lay-brothers and lay-sisters, and 
properties wrung from the dying under pain of eternal damnation. 

Besides, the Chinese six companies support their own sick and 
poor, while the five Romish companies; monks, clerks regular, mili- 
tary orders, canons regular, and friars, never help their poor so long 
as they can get heretics or government institutions, supported by 
industrious tax-payers, to do it for them. 

Some time ago, the Hearst papers published an extraordinary 
report of a visit to the monasteries of Tibet, by Prince Pierre of 
Orleans. It stated that: "He was sent there supposedly on a 
secret diplomatic mission and was evidently offered an opportunity, 
never before extended to a stranger, of witnessing some of the weird- 
est and most fantastic ceremonials of the most mysterious people on 
earth." The Prince says: 

"After leaving Srinagar, my series of receptions began. They 
started with the monks. The whole country is sow^n with their 
monasteries, severe and formidable on the outside. From Srinagar 
to Geh, the principal town of Godak in the sacred valley of the In- 
dus, we came across a hundred. They really look like fortress 
castles and are called gompas. 

"Riding at the head of our caravan, I was going to knock at the 
first gate of one of these enormous pious fortresses, when I was 
stopped by a gesture from my Hindoo cook. He got off his pony, 
prostrated himself in the dust; then approaching a sort of wooden 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 193 

wheel attached to the wall, he gave it a swift turn. The wheel 
moved, then stopped. M}^ cook, w^ho had kept his head lowered 
during this little ceremony, stood up and made me understand that 
I should do likewise. I did not hesitate. The wheel turned again 
under m}' fingers. 

''It is the custom thus to announce one's arrival and satisfied, 
no doubt by my obedience, my cook now condescended to inform 
me what I had done. I had simply addressed a prayer to Buddha. 
The wheel was a prayer mill, and in response the gate opened. Thus 
we came into the first cell of the monaster}^ On a slight eminence, 
a larger wheel, furnished with wings like our wind mills, turned it- 
self. It was another prayer mill but this one prayed alone, accord- 
ing to the wind. There are also water mills in this country which 
throw off excellent prayers to sanctify the country. I must confess 
that the fields close by these water mills were in most flourishing 
condition. The men who guard these mills are most hospitable. As 
soon as they learned of our presence the whole monastery seemed to 
be in motion. It resounded with the noise of arms and gongs. We 
were led into a vast court and told to sit in the shade of a sort of 
Egj^ptian porch. 

''The noise became more bewildering and increased rapidly 
until it became deafening. Ever}^ kind of musical instrument 
seemed to join in the medley without the least hint of rhythm. I 
learned later that this symbolized the clamor of the world. They 
appeared at last brandished by men w^earing scarlet togas, who 
arranged themselves on our right and left so that neither of our 
ears should be neglected. In the midst of this furious orchestra, 
I distinguished the sound of a trumpet which was about two yards 
long. 

"Between the long lines of men who Avere making this most 
hideous of clamors stalked the lamas, or priests of the monastery. 
The ceremony of introducing was of the Eastern sort. Our wel- 
eome was stately, dignified but nevertheless cordial. Everything 
was said through interpreters- — it took two. I spoke in Hindu- 
stanese; my first interpreter in Chinese and the second translated 
into the Tibetan tongue. We got on ver}' well in the preliminary 
conversation after the chief lama of the monastery had suddenly 
produced perfect silence by the wave of his hand. Finally we were 
invited to dine. 

"My friend Count Archer, Father Hendricks, the military am- 
bam and the principal priests and officials of the monastery were 
present. After a few^ minutes conversation in the room reserved for 
receptions we passed into the dining room, a big room with a table 
of red lacquer. The chief lama asked what we would have to drink 
and gave us choice of several bottles of wine; Russian champagne 
and Green Chartreuse,'' (exclusively made by the Carthusian monks. 
Romish). 



194 The Question of Romanism 

''Each guest had before him a long fork with two teeth, the 
traditional little ivory stick (chop-stick) and a tiny plate of silver 
from four to five inches around, upon which was served the entire 
meal. The table was loaded with hors D'oeuvres; roasted almonds, 
little melon squares, nenuphar seeds, bits of lard, etc. The head 
lama himself, brought us over glasses and the little ivory sticks. 
With our forks we dug into the different dishes, and after the hors 
d'eouvres, we took off our hats and lit cigarettes or pipes. 

"Then there was set before us a long menu of curious dishes; 
fish wattles and skins, fritters of nenuphar flowers, nenuphar stems, 
seaweed, ducks, mutton, eggs preserved thirty years in ashes. 

''There was a pause in this most extraordinary of banquets and 
a visible manifestation of expectancy even on the stolid faces of our 
entertainers, as though the crisis in this weird entertainment was at 
hand. Presently an extraordinary being advanced draped in a con- 
glomeration of screaming colors; his face hidden under the most 
horrible mask. He was soon followed by two others, then by four. 
Each one had on a different mask and on their gowns the most bar- 
baric drawings stood out. Heads of ferocious animals and diaboli- 
cal figures hurled themselves against one another. The orchestra 
clamored; cries filled the air. We seemed to be in the inferno. There 
were sinners who lamented — repenting under their masks — em- 
blems which symbolized the torments which the unbeliever must 
endure. We were told that these actors were priests, musicians and 
dancers. 

"Then came the famous swallow's nest, the delicacy most ap- 
preciated by Asiatic gourmands. Immediately each priest and 
guest sought his hat, being unwilling to partake of such a delicacy 
with uncovered head. This ceremony they observed for certain of 
the most curious dishes. 

"As symptoms of satisfaction they cried out: 'I have enough.' 
or 'my stomach is like a drum.' 

"The head lama smiled and to complete the feast, brought out an 
enormous bowl of rice, surrounded by nine little saucers of various 
sauces, which one of us mixed all up together. This was the end of 
the feast. Then came tea. Each one emptied his cup at a gulp, 
rose and left without so much as a farewell glance. 

"During the feast the servants constantly brought in napkins 
dipped in water, with which we washed our faces; also bowls to 
gargle in. The dinner lasted about four hours." 

The prince had partaken of a high caste Chinese dinner, which 
is a long and luxurious ceremony. He mentioned being waited upon 
by servants; the same system prevails in all the monasteries and 
convents in every country. There is no place in the world out of 
India, where the line of caste is more severely drawn than in these 
prisons, labeled religious institutions. No Oriental despot was ever 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 195 

more servilely waited upon than are the '^princes of the church," by 
their slaves, the lay-sisters and lay-brothers, in this free (? ) Republic. 

^ ^ i'fi ^ ^ :^ :^ 

Every force in nature meets with the resistance of an opposing 
force; every positive expression has its negative response; every 
created thing has its natural enemy — its destroyer. It is the incom- 
prehensible duality of life; the good and bad spirits; God and the 
devil handed down from the beginning of time. 

Convent life is the natural enemy of domestic life; the destroyer 
of homes, ergo, civilization. Human beings who herd like cattle 
that run in bands are not evolved physically, mentally or morally 
to the elevated plane of mating. The first supreme instinct and im- 
pulse, from the rocks of ages to the mightly forests; the fragrant 
flowers, and the highest expression of animal life — MAN — is mating 
and reproduction. It is their cause of being; their utility in the 
great laboratory of this intricate and incomprehensible workhouse, 
called ''the earth," and the thing which through abortive creation 
cannot or will not perform its functions, when left to nature, is 
lopped off or destroyed by its enemy — the useful. 

There is nothing which charms and holds the imagination like 
mystery, and the austere, silent, sealed convents are the abodes of 
mystery. In visiting one of these institutions, the door is opened 
by a picturesque nun, always young and often, beautiful, with an 
impassive face trained down to a mask. She is generally dressed 
in white, with black* veil and rosary (beads) with a heavy cross 
hanging by her side, while she holds in her hand the key to the great 
door, attached to a chain pendant from her girdle. Questions are 
asked and answered softly and courteously, as the guest is directed 
into a plainly furnished reception room where she is kept waiting 
from fifteen minutes to a half hour, during which time she is strongly 
impressed with the immaculate cleanliness of her surroundings and 
incidentally composed into such a negative state mentally; when 
another sister glides into the room with cat-like silence, she is scarcely 
aroused from her mental inaction. 

The self-centered sister in faultless white, speaks in subdued 
tones and the answers are tuned to the same key. The visitor 
leaves the place with a feeling of regret. She has experienced a 
new sensation of restfulness which has fascinated her, and if she has 
a daughter, she will send her there to be kept pure from the world 
and its disturbing unrest, in the care of that sad-faced woman who 



196 The Question of Romanism 

has renounced the world for the love of her God. The charm has 
been complete. The play of silence upon the over-wrought 
nerves and mental faculties of the busy, intelligent woman living 
the useful life of self-forgetfulness and love of others, who knows 
nothing of the power of silence and cessation from mental and 
nervous action, attributes her mental elevation to the religious 
surroundings and spiritual exaltation of the so-called ascetic life 
of selfish relinquishment of all human duties, and attainment of 
self-glorification at the sacrifice and labor of others. She has not 
seen the lay-sisters in the cellars. No one ever does, any more than 
they expect to meet the cooks and laundresses of other homes, yet 
the most pitiful human objects on earth — are these lay-sisters in 
holy retreats — of holy orders. 

The poor, abandoned, forgotten lay-sisters work for the richest 
Corporation in the world, without the slightest compensation, men- 
tal relaxation or physical comfort, for they represent no money value. 
They are the ones who keep the miles of boards in the thousands 
of institutions of the Corporation of Rome, so immaculately clean. 
They are the ones who do the washing and ironing for the picturesque 
nuns and sisters, whose spotless garbs excite the admiration of the 
world. They do the cooking and the laundering for the entire hun- 
dred thousand nuns and sisters, besides thousands of boarding 
scholars. They are the ones who carry the wood and coal, build the 
fires and rake the ashes ; modern improvements do not enter into con- 
vent economics, where labor costs nothing. They are the ones who do 
all the scullery work in the cold, damp cellars. No puny excuses are 
accepted for absence from work in this great machine; complaints and 
sickness are not tolerated, until the poor creature lies down to die. Even 
then, there is no more sympathy for her than a dying dog. There 
is generally an unlicensed monk, friar or priest who acts as physician 
to the sisters, and they administer the last sacrament, and perform 
the ceremony of extreme unction. In out-of-the-way places the bury- 
ing ground of the sisters is within the enclosure of the convent and 
the worked to death slave is buried as she worked, before the world 
is awake; and poor, ignorant Maggie ^IcGuire, whose coffin is marked 
Sister Constance, swells the number of martyrs to religion. She 
had worked from fourteen to sixteen hours every day, like a horse 
hitched to a cart, making his rounds. She was not permitted to 
speak except on stated occasions, and then only for a few moments. 
She could not read nor write, but it was just the same with those who 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 197 

could, there were no books, magazines or printed matter of any kind, 
even the Bible, permitted among them, and the prayer book she 
knew by heart. The only relaxation of the day was attendance 
at the chapel, two or three times, and there, this slave of the cellar was 
not permitted to sit with the lady teachers or choir sisters — the 
favorites — like all slaves she had her place apart. She had to cook 
for the ''Madams" and when they were through, she had to eat what 
they left, and from their dirty plates. Yet, ignorant Maggie Mc- 
Guire had cultured, refined companions in the cellar, whom the 
ignorant superior hated for their refinement, and whose lives were 
even worse than that of the illiterate, because they were more 
sensitive. 

A devout Roman Catholic woman asked me whj^ I hated con- 
vents. I answered: ''Because they are so cruel to the lay-sisters." 

"I dp not blame you," she replied, "for our people are not satis- 
fied with the treatment of the lay-sisters.^' 

Then I asked why there were so few old nuns, and she said: 

"Because convent life is so hard that they almost all die young." 

The slave masters of the Corporation of Rome tell us that this 
slavery is voluntary, but the Constitution says: There shall be no 
"voluntary servitude." Fifty years ago in was a common thing 
for people who had a number of children, to "bind them out," to 
work for others till they were of age, but that verged on slavery and 
was abolished. 

In every human being a certain religious exaltation develops 
during the evolution from puberty to maturity. It is called the 
impressionable age. Italy recognized this fact, when over-run with 
idle, lecherous monks and priests, it passed a law forcing all young 
men to serve in the army from seventeen to twenty years of age, 
which was supposed to bridge over the period of religious mania. 
It is suicidal and should be legislated as such, for young men or 
women to take vows during that ecstatic period, by which they re- 
nounce the very attributes which cause them to make the fatal mis- 
take. Ecstatic religion is merely another expression for unfolded 
love and passion. In default of earthly objects their souls cry out 
from spiritual hunger, just as a lamb bleets or a dove mourns, with- 
out knowing why. 

We must bear in mind that these emotional creatures, who mistake 
animal desire for spiritual control, have been trained in the con- 



198 The Question of Romanism 

fessional by some young, handsome, robust priest, who is nearer to 
them and always will be, than any other man, who by his secret ques- 
tionings knows exactly the state of their minds and the material 
upon which he has to work, and his object is always for the one pur- 
pose, the growth of the church. He is past master in his knowledge 
of women, and he plays upon their weaknesses as an artist, upon a 
well-tuned instrument. He must, apparently, be as interested in 
the beer-besotted, old illiterate who recounts the low, filthy thoughts 
of her polluted mind and body, as the fluttering virgin who has been 
taught and believes that this charming celibate represents Christ 
in the confessional; that he can commit no sin; that he does not know, 
as a man, what she tells him when she lays bare to him every thought, 
desire and impulse, which like the chick is pecking at the shell to 
break into new life. This man who is to her a mortal god, having 
renounced the world, inspires her with the desire to emulate his 
example, and she would follow him through hell, to reach his exalted 
plane. 

A woman who served for seventeen years as a sister, said to me: 
''There is no God, or such things could not be. I hate the very word 
religion and I never get on my knees any more but to call upon the devil 
to curse the priest who inveigled me into that hell and robbed me of 
my youth." 

There are thousands of heart-broken women securely locked in 
the convents where they have been abandoned by the priests, who 
lured them to their doom, or who, through disappointed love, flew 
to seclusion as their last and only course in life. Some of them have 
tried to escape, but police assistance has been called into requisition 
to capture them and bring them hack, and no authority has ever asked 
what becomes of them after their ineffectual efforts, yet the law of 
the Corporation of Rome is death to those who bring disgrace upon 
any of its societies, and reads as follows: 

''Q. Has a woman or girl whose honor a priest has destroyed, 
any remedy under the law of the church? 

''Ans. She may privately denounce him to the bishop, who 
may, if it please him suspend the offending priest or remove him to 
another parish. 

''Q. Then the punishment of the priest is not compulsory upon 
his superior? 

''Ans. Not by an}' means. 

''Q. Failing in appeal to the bishop, has the injured one no 
other remedy — can she not have recourse to the civil law? 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 199 

''Ans. She has practically no remedy beyond the bishop. An 
appeal to civil law becomes a mortal and most deadly sin, because 
such a course is liable to create a scandal to the church." 

Civil law places a man in prison for the seduction of a virgin 
but foreign priests do not recognize civil law, and they are permitted 
to take young girls from six years and upward into confession boxes 
and ask them such filthy questions that the same, when printed, 
cannot go through the mails. 

In Oakland, California, a young girl told her father what the 
priest asked her in confession, which in itself is a mortal sin. The 
father called on the priest and told him if any member of his family 
ever went into his church again, or he knew of his attempting to 
communicate with any member of his family, he would kill him. 

The methods of enslavement in the ''holy" corporations of the 
church of Rome, have no parallel in the history of the world. There 
are many degrees of crime which are remitted and paid for by the 
sacrifice of achild, even unborn, to one of their soul-destroying orders. 

Rev. Henry A. Sullivan, ex-monk, tells of his consecration to 
the church, as follows : His father and mother were Irish, of the 
devout, unquestioning kind, and at their pre-nuptial confessions, 
which all devout Romanists must make, they both confessed that 
they had intended to take "religious vows" before they met and 
loved each other. The priest then commanded them; if they had 
children, that a boy and a girl must be consecrated to the church. 
Accordingly without the least question on the part of the parents, 
Henry A. Sullivan and his sister were consecrated to the church, and 
surrendered in infancy. Henry has an active and inquiring mind, 
which has lifted him out of bondage, although he was brought to the 
United States a working slave of the corporation of Rome. But 
his sister, if alive, is still a Discalsed Carmelite Nun, the hardest, 
cruelest fate that could be visited upon a human being, even forced 
to go barefoot. 

Children born with a veil, a film over the face, not an uncommon 
event, are all claimed by the church as predestined for the cloisters. 
A bright, Irish woman, a sister of Mercy, for nineteen years, told me 
that she was born with a veil and trained from infancy for her voca- 
tion. 

As such absolute obedience requires absolute ignorance; it is 
not surprising that a large majority of the ''holy brothers" and 
"holy sisters" in the United States are illiterate Irish — rank and 



200 The Question of Romanism 

raw from the old sod. From an unquestionable source I learned that 
a priest of one of the ''hoh^" orders, brought to this Republic, as a 
result of one visit to Ireland, eighteen 3"oung Irishmen to swell the 
working force of his monastery. If this is not unadulterated im- 
portation of slave labor, our laws Avill require a new interpretation. 
I can see no distinction between the importation of colored slaves 
to work on plantation, and the importation of illiterate Irishmen 
to work for life, in the cellars of the ''holy" corporations of Rome. 

There are many industries, which are successfully carried on 
in the business world, that are also found in these ''holy" corporations, 
from the making of all kinds of liquors and beers, to baby wardrobes, 
by wageless slaves. A short time ago, the cigarette girls of Madrid 
attacked a nunnery, and had torn down a portion of the wall before 
the civil authorities stopped them. These self-supporting girls were 
tr^'-ing to get at the nuns, who, they said were underbidding them 
at cigarette making, and robbing them of their means of livelihood. 

Wedding trousseaux, childrens' wardrobes, all kinds of em- 
broidery and needle work; wholesale and retail, for stores and in- 
dividuals ; even steam laundries where hotel and family work is done 
by American girls consigned as prisoners for a term of years by 
courts and irresponsible parties, and whose task masters are imported 
slaves. A Roman Catholic woman said to me: "We cannot get 
American sisters to do that hard work, they have to bring over 
foreigners." 

This convent system has reduced wages in every country where 
they swarm, as the}^ are doing in the United States, to starvation 
prices, particularly for girls and women, who must either become 
one of them or be forced into brothels, through the impossibility of 
earning a living. 

In their large charitable institvitions the work is principally done 
by the little girls from eight years and upward, and these children, 
poorly fed, are worked so hard that they come out broken in health, 
if they get out at all. There is no pretense at educating them, or 
teaching them anything useful by which they can help themselves 
when they do come out; that is, when the cities cease to pa}^ for mak- 
ing them incompetent burdens. 

The confessors are always on the alert for girls and women with 
impressionable minds, who have property or money, whom they 
entice into convents under binding contracts by which all they 
possess must be given, in-etrievably, to the church; besides their 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 201 

services. Fortunes, to the amount of $1,000,000 have been handed 
over to these criminal grafters, by confiding women, laboring under 
religious mania, who finding the life impossible, have been thankful 
to get away with'out receiving a dollar of their interest in the corpora- 
tion, and our courts of blindfolded Justice, never interfere. There 
are young orphan children sent to convents, one of whom is being 
guarded from afar, who are never permitted to know that their parents 
have left them a competence, and they are robbed of their property 
and kept as sisters, working for the corporation through the criminal 
neglect of those in power. 

A Sister of Mercy, having broken in health after years of nursing 
in the hospitals of the order, went without a dollar to poor friends; 
the corporation having no use for its worked-to-death slaves; and 
w^hen the inhumanity of her sacrifice fully dawned upon her, she con- 
sulted a lawyer, who demanded $1,000 for her services or threatened 
to sue the corporation. The $1,000 was promptly paid. 

The final vows by which women bind themselves as absolute 
and irrevocable slaves, renouncing every human right and obligation, 
except for the Corporation of Rome, are so strong, so impressive, so 
terrible in their consequences if violated, that the novice when she 
lays aside her worldly clothes for the cheap, changeless ''habit" of 
the sisters, is compelled, in most institutions, to lie down in a coffin, 
that her death to the world and all she once loved may be complete. 
Even her name is blotted out and never known to her companions. 
The coffin in which Bridget O'Brien lies down is labeled ''Sister 
Agnes," and it is put aside until her death when she is buried in it. 
The effect of this shocking ceremony — and the ever present coffin — 
startling even to strong minds and nerves, may be imagined, upon 
the minds of illiterate, superstitious creatures, who believe that the 
jaws of hell are yawning for them if they break these vows. They 
must go to confession and tell the priest every thought, desire and 
feeling, and if there is the shadow of rebellion, they will be disciphned 
according to its magnitude. They must kiss the superior's feet, 
or the floor in front of her; they must walk all day with dried peas in 
their shoes; they must kneel in saying their beads till they faint, or 
fast till they can't stand, and they must sleep on boards which are 
so short that their feet hang over, while their heads rest on blocks. 
Sometimes they must lie on boards nailed together like a cross. But 
these are the slaves. The superiors and the French Madams ride in 
carriages in cities and some drive their own phaetons in country towns. 



202 The Question of Romanism 

Among the hundreds of sealed Romish institutions, the ''Official 
Roman Catholic Directory'' gives the Alexian Brothers; Cellites or 
Jesuits, four hospitals and two insane asylums in the archdioceses 
of Chicago and St. Louis. Also, the Franciscan Fathers (0. M. C. ) 
as conducting thirteen hospitals and institutions (?) and three 
prisons. The sisters of ''St. Joseph's Mercy Convent," Dubuque, Iowa, 
also conduct an Insane Asylum! 

By whom were the inmates of these prisons committed and 
who is looking after their welfare?. There are aged, infirm and insane 
in these institutions who have never been committed by any court 
of law and of whom the world knows nothing. 

An old servant who came to California in early days when wages 
were high, had saved $5,000, and of course her confessor knew about 
it. He advised her to go into a convent to spend her old age with 
the sisters, and she went to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, or Sisters 
of Charity, also known as the "French Madames." Everything 
"was lovely" and she gave them her money under promise of a 
comfortable home for life. 

She was a good cook, and a few days after entering the convent 
she was put in the kitchen to cook. She objected, saying she had 
come there for rest, but she was answered that no one rested in the 
convent. She was not permitted to see the superior who had taken 
her money, and was so closely watched by the sisters, lest she should 
leave the convent, that she became afraid and worked harder than 
she had ever done when she was earning good wages. After two 
years her health failed and she was put upon lighter work and at 
the same time lighter diet, until she found herself very feeble. After 
incessant pleading, she was permitted to see the superior whom she 
asked for a little of her money, that she might go to friends, but the 
superior, who was an imported French woman, told her that she had 
no money 'there, that her long stay in the convent had exhausted 
all her funds, and she was then a pauper on the institution, which 
was too poor to help her. 

After that her food became so scant and poor, that she deter- 
mined to escape, for, she said: "I made up my mind that if they could 
not starve me to death, they would poison me." 

She stole out of the kitchen, one morning, or as she expressed 
it: "flew past the groceryman," and sought the home of a friend, to 
find she had moved. 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 203 

Then she went to a lawyer's office and told her story. The 
lawyer gave her two dollars to get a lodging and something to eat, 
assuring her that he could recover her money, and possibly wages. 
He made a formal demand for the money and pay for her services 
while in the institution, at hard labor, but the smooth-tongued 
superior, after expressing the greatest concern and sympathy for the 
''poor woman/' declared that she was insane, and they had only kept 
her .as an act of charity, which she was sorry to hear had not been 
appreciated. . 

This order of ''Sisters of Charity, or Sacred Heart, or French 
Madams" was founded in Paris, Nov. 21, 1800, by Joseph Desire 
Varin, superior of the ''Fathers of the Faith, '"'as the Jesuits then called 
themselves in order to get back to France. The Laws of Reform 
of Mexico say they are not a religious body, but the female Jesuits. 
The order was founded after the revolution in France for the benefit 
of the noble women who had lost their estates through confiscation. 
They were women who had never worked and did not know how to 
earn a living, and the Jesuits, knowing the weakness of the masses 
for titles, established this order that these women, and their affiliated 
men, might live in luxury at the expense of the laboring masses, 
and a "French Madam" would no more condescend to open the door 
of her convent, than a millionaire Avould answer his own bell. They 
are slave-drivers whose "holy" servants in the kitchen and laundry 
are a thousand times worse off than the slaves of the South, ever 
were. 

When General Juarez suppressed the monasteries, convents 
and nunneries in ]\lexico he found the idle mistresses of the priests, 
were imported French, Spanish or Italian women. He bought 
tickets and put them on board ships that took them back to the 
countries from whence they came. The Mexican sisters he found 
in the cellars at hard -work and he provided homes for them. When 
will the United States be as civilized and advanced as Mexico? 

From Turin, Italy, August 1, 1907, came the following through 
the associated press: "The anti-clerical riots which have broken 
out in North-western Italy are largeiy a result of popular excitement, 
following the publication of certain alleged revolting and immoral 
practices of the Salician Fathers at Verazze. 

"This exposure was printed in L'Aoro and in it the pupils of the 
schools, maintained by the fathers, described the rites performed 
daily at what they called the "black masses,' ' at which the priests 
and the sisters were present and which the scholars say they were 



204 The Question of Romanism 

forced to attend. The school has been closed and the puphs sent 
to their homes. 

'^A crowd sacked the church at Verazze last night and stoned 
the convent of the Salicians." 

Five months later the American papers announced that the 
Salician Fathers had left Turin, Italy, and come to the United States 
to join the California division (of Jesuits). 

The utter lack of mental occupation in convents, aside from the 
teaching in the schools; and the smallness of their lives is illustrated 
by the following: A young woman upon entering the <5onvent wore 
corsets, but knowing that she would have no further use for them 
and not knowing how to dispose of them, put them in her laundry 
bag, expecting the lay-sisters who did the laundering would throw 
them away. A few days later, when the sisters were assembled in 
the community room for a lecture from the superior, the young novice 
was surprised to see the superior hold up her corsets and ask to whom 
they belonged. She smilingly answered by raising her hand. The 
superior commanded her to come forward and kneel at her feet; 
kiss the floor and ask her pardon for her fault, then she was sternly 
commanded by this ignorant Irish woman, the superior, to go to 
every sister in the convent, and she said there were over eighty, and 
kneel before each one and ask her pardon for her fault in sending 
her corsets to the laundry. She said it was the hardest day's labor 
she ever did, but at the time, she accepted it as just punishment. 
This same woman told me that after leaving the convent on account 
of poor health, and being very ill, she sent to the superior of the con- 
vent where she had worked like a slave for nineteen years, and re- 
ceived a few second hand clothes when she came out; to borrow 
twenty dollars, promising to return it as soon as she was able to earn 
it, and it was refused. The poor creature had learned to hate every- 
thing appertaining to the church and religion in general, and her 
sense of moral responsibility had been decidedly blunted. She had 
been trained as a successful beggar and she decided that the ''holy 
order" owed her a living. She made herself a sister's costume and 
had no difficulty in finding an accomplice, to make regular rounds 
as " Holy'' beggars. I met her on the street in her costume and 
charged her with having returned to the convent, and she made the 
astounding assertion: "there are hundreds of women begging 
throughout the United States in sister's garbs, who are not sisters." 

I asked her if she was not afraid of being caught and punished 
for felonv? 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 205 

She sweetly asked: ''Who would punish me? They don't 
dare! It w^ould break up then- own business." 

Another sister told me that there were two wealthy old Irish 
women, who came regularly to the convent to early mass, which 
was before daylight, and the superior was laying all sorts of traps 
to get their money. She told them that their devotion to the Virgin 
^lary had awakened such love in the ''holy Mother's" heart that she 
had decided, if they would give their property to the convent; to 
bless them above other w^omen by coming down and blessing them in 
person, but this great honor from the ''Mother of God" was to Vje 
guarded with profound secrec^^ A few mornings afterw^ard the 
woman who told me and another sister arranged the tableau in the 
garden near the gate^ where the women Avere in the habit of entering. 
When they saw^ the Virgin ^lary rigged out in circus tinsel; with 
hands uplifted in benediction, they were so frightened that they 
bent very low to receive the blessing, and before they could rise, 
the sister behind a bush drew the Virgin Mary (?) out of sight. 

This happened fifteen years ago. It is needless to add; the 
convent got the money. 

As to the moral conditions of these men and w^omen of "holy 
orders"; it must be borne in mind that fully sixty per cent of them 
can neither read nor write; and walled in within the same enclosure 
or living in close proximity as they do in all of our cities, it is but 
natural, as history records them, that many of them are mental 
perverts and physical degenerates. 

During the Breckinbridge-Pollard trial in Washington, it was 
stated on the witness stand, that several hundred illegitimate chil- 
dren were born in a certain convent — the offspring of rich men and 
congressmen. This institution was a sort of lying-in establishment, 
and the sisters officiated in this unholy traffic, just as they do in 
every city in the world w^here convents are tolerated. 

The American women drove Congressmen Breckinridge out of 
W^ashington — but they did not disturb the convent! They did not 
rescue the helpless women who are the obedient slaves of the Cor- 
poration of Rome, whose priests are the disciples of the following: 

"Moral Theology, by Escobar, pp. 326, 327, 328 of Vol. 4. A 
man who abducts a woman from affection expressly to marry her 
is guilty of mortal sin but a priest who forcibly violates her from 
lust; incurs no censure." 

Fegili, another reliable Roman Catholic authority, wrote: 



206 The Question of Romanism 

''Under what obligation is he who defiles a virgin? Answer: 
Besides the obligation of penance, he incurs none." 

The following from St. Ligouri, Ep. Doc. Mor. p. 444, is taught 
in all theological colleges: 

''A bishop, however poor he may be, cannot appropriate to 
himself pecuniary fines without the license of the Apostolic See. 
But he ought to apply them to pious uses. Much less can he apply 
these fines to anything else but pious uses, which the Council of Trent 
laid upon those clergymen who keep concubines.^' 

And these ''holy" sinners keep the keys to the convents! 

The Brooklyn Eagle, a few years ago, published a lengthy 
article descriptive of the admission of a young lady of Brooklyn 
into the order of Perpetual Adoration at Hunt's Point, Bronx, New 
York. The young lady was of wealthy parentage, which the article 
stated was one of the requisites of admission, as every member had 
to bring into the order from $20,000 to $25,000 for the privilege of 
entering. 

This nunnery was sanctioned by Archbishop Corrigen, of New 
York, the son of a saloon keeper, and friend and adviser of the Tam- 
many gang; the man who had the Jesuit fathers publish a pamphlet 
stating that it was not necessary that the masses should read and 
write; the man who is said to have died worth $100,000,000 through 
his successful religious grafting. 

The object of the society of Perpetual Adoration of the blessed 
sacrament, seems to be the sure killing of its members for the money 
they bring into the order, as the article read: "The rules governing 
the lives of the members are so severe that it is said no woman can 
survive them ten years." The only object of this insane incarcera- 
tion is the adoration of the sacrament, and the sisters must kneel 
in perpetual prayer; an unbroken chain to heaven, two hours at a 
time and every two hours. These women who come from luxurious 
homes can have only broken sleep and that on boards; they eat only 
vegetables, and must fast most of the time. From the moment they 
enter the institution, the world is absolutely closed to them. They 
can never see any one from the outside world or communicate with 
any one. They are not permitted to speak with each other except 
for a short time on Sundays. Their prayers are incessant repetitions 
which enfeeble the mind, and their starved bodies soon wreck them. 

If State's prison convicts were treated in this manner, the en- 
tire country would rise in arms, yet foreign religious fanatics enslave 
and murder American girls, for the mone}^ they bring to them, and 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 207 

the hellish outrage is hermetically sealed and labeled RELIGION! 

As the Blessed Sacrament is nothing but bread until the priest 
has professed to perform a miracle and changed it into the ''actual 
body and blood of Christ/' if the}^ adore it before that ceremony, 
they are worshiping bread; if the priest has performed the miracle 
and the wafer is the ''actual bod}^ and blood of Christ," what can 
these benighted women do to make it higher or holier? In any case, 
they are mentally, irresponsible creatures who have prepaid their 
expenses in a nunnery to commit suicide. 

This order is known in Europe as the ^^ Buried Alive". Some 
years ago, in Naples, when a "Nunnery of the Buried Alive" was 
opened, "they found twenty-six nuns, ragged, wretched and half 
insane. * * Some had forgotten how to talk. * * These women were 
like bony skeletons." 

While these murderous orders have been supressed in every 
civilized Romish country, the United States, with its boast of "equal 
rights for all and special privileges for none," and a Constitution which 
makes slavery a crime, is permitting the revival of these pagan in- 
stitutions all over the country. 

The following account from the Los Angeles Examiner of May, 
1908, may be interesting from the fact that the order of Reparatrice, 
which was founded by a widow with two daughters, relatives of Pius 
IX', is not allowed in Italy, but the Countess Leary is permitted 
to introduce them into the United States. The Carmelites, as the 
article states, were driven from France. 

"The Order of the Reparatrice, whose Nuns Devote Themselves 
to Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament in New York; and 
the Carmelite Nuns who Never Unveil Their Faces, Never Eat 
Meat and Lead a Cloistered Life of Terrible Severity. 

"Two very interesting orders of nuns have just had branches 
established in the United States for the first time. One is the order 
of the Reparatrice (Reparation), and the other the order of Car- 
melites." (These two new corporations swell the number of re- 
ligious orders, of the corporation of Rome in the United States as 
recorded in their "official Directory of 1908," to the enormous number 
of two hundred and one. ) 

"It was through the efforts of the Countess Leary that the branch 
of the Order of the Reparatrice was established in New York. The 
object of the order is to engage in perpetual worship of the Sacrament 
of the Holy Communion, in order to make reparation for certain 



208 The Question of Romanism 

sacrileges which have been committed against it by others. The 
rules of the order are very strict. The nuns never go out of their 
house and lead a life of the greatest severity. 

"The members of the order are mostly women of noble and 
wealthy families. The present head of the order was formerly the 
Countess de Raymond. The parent house is in Rome. 

''The American chapter of the order has been installed in three 
old-fashioned houses, at Nos. 47-51 Charlton street. The two largest 
rooms in one of the houses have been arranged as a chapel. Here 
from sunrise to sunset two veiled nuns kneel perpetually in adoration 
of the Sacrament. 

''The chapel is divided by a grating. On one side of it is the 
altar and on that side the nuns worship. Strangers desiring to hear 
the masses, which are held at sunrise, are admitted to the front room 
but are separated from the altar and the nuns by thei grating. 

"Their dress is more attractive than is usually the case with 
the strictest orders of nuns. The reason of this is that the perpetual 
adoration of the Holy Sacrament makes a garb of pleasing appear- 
ance appropriate. The dress is of pretty pale blue material and 
graceful cut. Two long slashes on either side of the skirt reveal a 
white under dress. When the nuns are at prayer they wear veils 
over their dresses. 

"A life of cloistered seclusion in lower New York involves con- 
siderable hardship for the nuns. At the older houses of the order 
in Europe they usually have large walled-in gardens, but here they 
have only a little strip of stone-paved yard in which to take exercise, 
and that is surrounded by noisy and crowded houses, with factories 
not far away. 

"It is understood that the order will eventually have a convent 
of appropriate ecclesiastical architecture in this country. The head 
of the New York Chapter is known as Mother Mary of St. Matthew, 
a name which she assumed on renouncing her title and the outside 
world. She lived in the house of the order at Florence before com- 
ing here. There are at present only six nuns here. 

"The Carmelite Nuns, the most austere and secluded order of 
nuns in the world, have now established four communities in this 
country — in Brooklyn, Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore. 

"Since the expulsion of the Carmelites from France, which has 
hitherto been the chief centre of the order, it is probable that they will 
make the United States their principal place of residence. 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 209 

''A great and almost awe-inspiring interest attaches to the Ufe 
of the CarmeHte nuns. To ordinary persons it seems scarcely credi- 
ble that human beings can voluntarily submit to such hardships as 
these devoted women. As a general rule it may be said that from 
the time they take the veil until they die they never expose their 
faces^ and never speak except when compelled to do so b}^ their 
religious duties. It has been said that they receive no visitor but 
death. Even the family and relatives of a nun are never permitted 
to see her after she takes the veil. 

^'The nun rises at- 5 a. m. and breaks her fast with black coffee 
and bread eaten in silence. Before her plate is ever present a human 
skull to remind her that she is to spend her life in preparation for 
death. The skull is a central object at every important ceremony 
in the convent. It stands on the mother superior's table from which 
she addresses the nuns and inflicts penance on them. 

'^ After breakfast prayer follows in the chapel. The morning 
hours are filled with work on vestments and scapulars. The nuns 
are noted throughout the world for their exquisite needlework. One 
of their strictest rules is that none of them shall ever be idle. The 
sewing hour is the nearest approach to diversion which they know, 
but the rule is always strictly enforced that not one word must pass 
between them at this time. 

''After the tolling of the Angelus another meal is served, con- 
sisting of dry bread, plain boiled potatoes, a green vegetable, and 
sometimes fish. No butter, sugar, coffee, beverage, relish or dessert 
is allowed. The taste of meat is practically unknown to these nuns. 

''The evening meal is as spare and unappetizing as the break- 
fast. Then follows silent contemplation and prayer, which is pro- 
longed into the night, until the order to retire for the night is given. 
All the devotions are performed in sight of the grinning skull, which 
keeps them constantly in mind of death. The air of gloom is in- 
creased by the fact that no artificial lights are permitted, except 
for ceremonial purposes, and thus in Winter the nuns pass their 
time largely in darkness. 

"The Carmelites wear a brown habit and scapular or hood of 
peculiar form. This hood is very ample and hangs down over the 
forehead and sides of the face. Beneath this is a linen cloth which 
completely hides the face. Holes for the eyes are cut in the cloth. 
The face of the nun is never exposed to view until her body is laid 
out in death. 



210 The Question of Romanism 

''Instead of shoes the nuns wear cord sandals over stockings of 
coarse material like that of their habits. Their bed consists of a 
board on which are placed two bundles of straw in a bag to represent 
a mattress. 

''There are many other rules, besides these mentioned, which 
make the lives of these nuns incredibly austere and painful. They 
fast from the Exaltation of the Cross until Easter. 

"They discipline themselves with unusually severe penances 
several times a week, particularly on Friday. One of the pen- 
ances on Friday is flagellation, in which the pentitents w^hip them- 
selves. The Friday flagellation is taken 'for the propagation of 
the faith, for the preservation of states and princes, for their bene- 
factors, for the souls in purgatory, for captives and for those who 
may be in mortal sin.' 

"Several times every day the Carmelite nun prostrates herself, 
face downward, on the stone floor and asks forgiveness for her sins, 
while her sisters standing in a solemn row around the room read their 
prayers. Each of them performs the same act of contrition in turn. 
A most impressive scene occurs when a nun has been convicted of a 
serious fault from the point of view of the order. The offender lies 
prone upon her face before the Mother Superior and her second in 
rank, who sit at a table with a skull between them. Another sister 
stands at a pulpit at the side of the room, high above the rest and 
out of sight of the offender, and with her black hood falling over 
her face reads in a muffled voice the charges against the culprit. 
An act of penance performed by each nun lying face downward on 
the floor closes every evening in the convent. 

"Many persons will Avonder what reason there can be to justify 
sane persons in voluntarily condemning themselves to a life of such 
hardship and suffering as these nuns. To those who are capable of 
considering all sides of a question it will not be very difficult to find 
reasons for this conduct. Doubtless the nuns, believing in the 
doctrine that one may suffer vicariously and atone for the sins of 
others, feel that the sufferings the}^ undergo, hoAvever great they 
may be, can atone for only a very small part of all the sins of hu- 
manity. They constantly remind themselves, moreover, that their 
sufferings and penances are as nothing compared with the agony 
which their Master endured in order to save mankind from ever- 
lasting punishment. The nuns who read the daily homilies to their 
sisters tell them that they must not pride themselves on their virtue, 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 211 

but must continue to pray unceasingly for forgiveness for themselves 
and others. 

''Probably the rule of the Carmelite order that will appear most 
mysterious is that which requires the nun to keep her face covered 
for the whole of her life. The object of this is that her face may not 
be recognized by her companions or by others whom she may meet 
by some unusual accident, and that any human emotions of interest 
or vanity may not be aroused. It is also intended to cause discom- 
fort by depriving the nun of light and air. Not until death is the 
rule about covering the face relaxed. Then the nun is stretched 
upon her bier Avith face uncovered and feet bare. She is surrounded 
by beautiful fresh flowers, almost as if she were a bride. 

''The Order of Carmelites, which includes both monks and nuns, 
is one of the oldest in existence. It takes its name from ]\Iount 
Carmel, a peculiarly sacred site in the Holy Land, where the prophets 
Elijah and Elisha dwelt, and where many events recorded in the 
Holy Scriptures occured. Phocas, a Greek monk of the Isle of Pat- 
mos, who visited the Holy Land in 1185, relates that the cave of 
Elijah was then visible on Mount Carmel, and that a large monastery 
had long existed there and was in his time in ruins. He then made 
a small enclosure and re-established the monastery. That was the 
recognized historical foundation of the present Order of Carmelites. 

"The extremely severe rules described here were due to Saint 
Theresa, of Avila, a remarkable Spanish woman, who became a 
Carmelite nun in 1535. She founded what w^ere known as the 'Re- 
formed' or 'Barefoot' Carmelites." 

Rider Haggard, the well known novelist, having written that 
nuns were frequently immured or walled up in Mexico, as described 
by Walter Scott in Marmion, in the case of the injured Constance, 
his statement was called in question by Mr. J. Britten, of the CathoHc 
Truth Society, who in turn was answered by several. Rev. Dr. 
Grattan Guiness wrote: 

"As Mr. Haggard's statement that he saw in the public museum 
in the city of Mexico, the remains of a woman and child who had 
been walled up in a religious building, has been questioned, 1 
write to mention that I, too, have seen those remains, and also, in 
the public museum of the city of Toluca, Mexico, the remains of 
another victim who had thus been walled up alive; that 1 obtained, 
while in the city of Mexico, a photograph of three other persons who 
had been similarlv immured in that citv in the convent of St. Domi- 



212 The Question of Romanism 

nic. I have also four other pictures of walled up victims found 
in the Inquisition building at Pueblo, Mexico." 

Another correspondent said: ''In Mexico it is well know^n that 
nuns have been immured, and not even the most bigoted Romanist 
will dispute it. Mexicans say that not only were nuns immured, 
but monks who had incurred the enmity of their brothers; that 
unfortunate women, not nuns, were put to death in this manner 
by the clergy for not submitting to their lustful desires. The ini- 
quities of the church became so great that the government took the 
matter in hand and expelled all nuns and monks from the country, 
and has never allowed them to reestablish themselves." 

Still another wrote: ''Mr. Haggard wrote that he saw two 
mumified bodies in the museum, in the city of Mexico; there w^ere 
originally seven, all in excellent state of preservation, and were all 
found within the walls of the convent of the Franciscans, w-alled up 
in niches. Two were men, and plainly showed the limbs bound and 
the cords still remaining; catgut was used in most cases, and on one 
of the male bodies a piece of catgut was found tied tightly round the 
neck. I brought two of these mummies to the United States in 
1884. They w^ere wonderfully preserved, and showed in the ex- 
pression of their faces that they died in great distress. One was a 
man. His tongue protruded from his mouth. The other was a 
woman, and her agony must have been fearful, as the preserved 
remains show. They are in a shriveled state, with the expression 
of fearful agony still on their faces." 

One who has seen, wrote: "I lived in Mexico for three years, 
and saw the body of the woman with her child many times. Indeed 
both from her conspicuous position in the museum, and from the 
contrast between her brown and shriveled flesh with the absurd sort of 
evening tie which forms her sole clothing, it is impossible to visit 
the building without noticing its most tragic relic. 

"In the late sixties, after their suppression, some of the Mexican 
monasteries were pulled down, and bodies w^ere found of many who 
had been walled up. Of one victim who had been tried about 1855, 
whose body the writer saw; when walled up had been partially 
lifted from the ground by a rope, that his dying agonies might thus 
be intensified. His little child was thrown down at his feet. 

"In 1871, some letters appeared in an Italian journal written by 
a Romanist. They were translated under the title of 'The Religion 
of Rome, described by a Roman.' One of these letters headed 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 213 

'Excommunication and the Holy Office/ contains the following 
account: 'The walling up was of two kinds, the propria and im- 
propria, or complete and incomplete. By the first they punished 
dogmatists, by the second, the professors of witch-craft and sorcery. 
To punish the former, they made a nich in the wall, where, standing 
upright on his feet they placed the condemned, binding him well 
to the wall with cords and chains, so that he could not move in the 
least. Then they began to build from the feet to the knees, and 
every day they raised the wall a course, at the same time giving the 
prisoner to eat and to drink. When he died, the wall was built up. 
But, dead or alive, it was closed in such a manner that no one could 
see where the niche had been, and that a body remained there.' 
The Inquisition, pp. 58-59. 

''A priest, in the years 1848-54 sent the writer the following: 
'In the year 1848, when the revolution broke out in Sicily, I was 
pursuing my theological studies. It was sickening to read of cal- 
cined bones found in large ovens or furnaces in the subterraneans of 
the palace of the Inquisition (at Rome). Of niches formed in thick 
walls, wherein the victims bound with cords and strapped with 
leather straps to the niches, were buried alive. * * Several people 
of high respectability, returning from Rome, confirmed the truth 
of what had been published. * * Among the eye witnesses was 
a priest of high standing. Three years after this I went to the col- 
lege at Rome, where I met old acquaintances and friends, who also 
confirmed all I had heard.' The Inquisition, pp. 51-52. 

Rev. F. Mahoney, a Romish priest, correspondent of the Daily 
News, April 18, 1849, thus wrote in the columns of that journal: 
''I visited lately the work going on in the subterranean vaults of the 
Holy Office, at Rome. I saw embedded in old masonry, unsym- 
metrically arranged, five skeletons in various recesses, and the 
clearance had only just begun." 

In the library of Dublin University are M.S. records formerly 
belonging to the Roman Inquisition. Dr. Masset, who examined 
them says: ''Here is a sentence worse than the stake against a 
religious criminal; that of being perpetually walled up in an assigned 
place to finish the rest of life." 

The writer of "Secret History of Romanism," p. 208, says: 
"When staying in the Island of Capri, near Naples, in 1880, I saw 
the debris of a wall of an old, disused nunnery near Anacapri. A 
gentleman residing in the Island told me that when it latek/ fell 



214 The Question of Romanism 

down, a niche containing a walled up skeleton in it, became disclosed." 

^'When Napoleon I. raided the monasteries and convents of Spain 
in 1808, he found the cellars of these places filled with human bones,^ 
and living inmates who had been outraged, were found naked and 
almost starved in subterranean vaults. When the prison doors 
were opened by the soldiers of the Emperor, these men, who had been 
accustomed to witness the most revolting scenes, were moved to 
pity and took off their coats to cover the nakedness of the abused 
inmates of these Romish convents. 

The Rev. E. R. Walsh, ex-monk, published the following in 
his paper the Primitive Catholic: ''A great deal has been said about 
Roman Catholic convents; books have been written by those who 
for years were incarcerated within the walls of these abominable 
institutions; Stories of horrors, outrages and even murders per- 
petrated within these prisons have leaked into- the public press; 
histories' pages are black with records; but with all, a quill plucked 
from the black plumage of night and dipped in blood could not de- 
pict the real horrors of these Romish pest-houses. 

''When Gregory VII occupied the papal chair, the papal fish 
pond was cleaned, and the bodies of no less than 300 infants were 
found therein. If an investigating committee was sent through the 
United States to examine the convents supported by public money, 
who knows but the same state of affairs would be revealed? 

''A few years ago when the reservoir above the Union depot, 
in Pittsburg, Pa., was dry, the people of that city were shocked at 
the sight of infants' bones in the bed of the reservoir, and right above 
and directly over, was a convent. And some years ago when the St. 
Lawrence river sank lower than it ever was known before, the open- 
ing of a large drain was revealed, and the mouth of that drain was 
covered with the bones of infants, and the drain ran from a convent 
close by. 

''These convents are necessary appendages to a church with a 
celibate priesthood, but if the Roman church persists in keeping them, 
let them be supported by the church and not the State. 

"We have taken the pains to select for our readers some figures 
from the twenty-sixth annual report of the Board of Public 
Charities of the State of New York, for the year 1892. 

"We have selected eleven out of the many Romish institutions 
supported by public money, and these eleven are located in New 
York City. 



Monasteries, Nunneries and Convents 215 

''Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum, from school fund . .$ 3,878.40 
''R. C. Institution of 'Immaculate Conception, N. Y. 
City and Staten Island, received from City Treas- 
urer 135,437.48 

''R. C. Institution of Mercy, N. Y. City and Westchester 
Co., in charge of Sisters of Mercy, from City Treas- 
ury .\ ^ 82,882.29 

''St. Vincent de Paul Orphan Asylum, W. 23d St, N. Y. 
City, in charge of the Sisters of the Holy Cross (ob- 
ject to educate orphan children in Roman Catholic 

truths) 11,325.71 

"St. James' Home, Oliver and James Sts., N. Y. City, 

charge of Sisters of Charity 11,927.14 

"Dominican Convent of Our Lady of the Rosary, from 

treasury 64,389.40 

"St. Ann's Home, 90th St. in charge, Sisters Good 

Shepherd 25,123.40 

"House of the Hoh' Family, in charge of the Sisters . . 7,865.13 
"From School fund; Foundling Asylum, Sisters of 

Charity 266,027.64 

"St. Joseph's Asylum, in charge of Sisters of Notre 

Dame 54,494.78 

Ex-priest, William Hogan in his book on Nunneries asserts that 
"there is a lying-in hospital attached to every nunnery in Paris." 
(All of which were done away with in 1906.) "The same is to be 
seen in Madrid and the principal cities of Spain. I have seen them 
myself in Mexico and the city of Dublin, Ireland. What is the ob- 
ject of these hospitals? It is chiefly to provide for the illicit off- 
spring of priests and nuns and such other unmarried females as the 
priests can seduce through the confessional. 

"It will be said that there are no lying-in hospitals attached to 
the nunneries of this country, but I say from my own knowledge and 
experience through the confessional, that it would be well if there 
were. There would be fewer abortions. There would be fewer 
infants strangled and murdered. It is not generally known to 
Americans that the crime of producing abortions — a crime which 
our laws pronounce a felony — is a common, every day crime in 
popish nunneries. It is not known to Americans — but let it hence- 
forth be known to them — that strangling and putting to death in- 
fants is common in nunneries throughout this countrv. It is not 



216 The Question of Romanism 

known that this is done systematically and methodically according 
to popish instructions. The modus operandi is this: The infallible 
church teaches that without baptism even infants cannot go to heaven. 
The holy church not caring much how the aforesaid infants come 
into the world, but 'anxious that they should go from it according 
to the ritual of the church, insists that the infant shall be baptised. 
This being done and its soul thus fitted for heaven, the mother abbess 
generally takes between her holy fingers the nostrils of the infant, 
and in the name of the infallible church consigns it to the care of the 
Almighty; and I beg here to state from my own knowledge, through 
the confessional, that the father is in nearly all cases the inidvidual 
who baptizes it." 



Chapter XXI 



The Church of "Rome, the Enemy of Marriage; 
ergo, Civilization 



''Behold! the mountain labors and will bring forth a mouse!" 

''Pius X. is trying to reform marriages in the United States! 

When tragedies had to cease at the Vatican, comedies began, 
and like the Chinese plays, they run from January first to December 
thirty-first. The world is treated to small and disconnected parts 
which the chief actor, the pope, is taking, but like the Oriental 
drama, it is so shrouded in mystery and antiquity that few under- 
stand it. The pope knows nothing of marriage, according to civil- 
ized law, but the man who can play that he holds the keys to heaven 
and hell and cheerfully keep millions in torment, is quite the proper 
person to superintend marriages. If there is a sure way of keeping 
his hot air cells occupied, it will be through papal hand-cuffs on ill- 
mated couples. 

The pope meddles with other peoples' affairs to the extent of 
becoming wearisome. He may be "Gloriously Reigning" in Italy, 
but we object to a fossilized antique as figure-head of our ship of 
State 

The popes had their way with regard to marriages in Romish 
countries for almost fifteen hundred years, with the result that it was 
virtually prohibited, through the extortionate, unreasonable, impossi- 
ble marriage fees of the priests. The majority lived in concubinage 
and from fifty to seventy-five per cent of the children were illegitimate. 
To lift their people out of this slough of infamy, Romish Italy, France. 
Mexico, Guatemala and Hungro-Austria passed laws making civil 



218 The Question of Romanism 

marriages alone legal. The religious ceremony may follow, but the 
pope, who wants to reform the marriage laws in the United States, 
cannot make a legal marriage, himself, in any of these Romish coun- 
tries. When will this Republic • reach that period of civihzation, 
when by imitating France, Italy, Mexico, etc., and establishing a 
universal law of civil marriage, it will do away with the ceaseless 
interference by foreign priests, who keep the nation in perpetual re- 
ligious strife. 

The emancipation of women from being chattel possessions and 
domestic slaves, like the unparalleled physical and scientific develop- 
ments during the past fifty years, is so startling that its value to the 
human family is not understood. Like the hull of the nut, which 
sticks to the shell after it has burst every suture, the old conditions 
hamper the new, and it will take generations before woman's ex- 
alted position is brought back to the condition of six thousand 
years ago, when she was revered as a sacred creator, with the 
Supreme Creator of the human family. 

Science has proven that a virgin may become inoculated wAih- 
out physical contact, which proves the small part the male animal 
plays in the reproduction of his kind. Among the animal kingdom, 
the female is left absolutely unmolested after inoculation, and the 
early patriarchs and priests who have left to the world a history of 
concubinage and polygamy, were the followers of this doctrine of 
nature, by which the woman was set apart for her holy vocation 
during the period of gestation. The children took the mothers' 
names and the brothers of the mothers became their legal guardians. 
This custom prevailed in the "Sandwich Islands" when the whites 
went there, and is still in force in some parts of Alaska. There are 
also places in Mexico where the natives adhere in a measure, to the 
ancient custom by giving the girls the mothers' names. 

1 he lofty position of women was done away with by the celibate 
Brahmin priests, who made themselves gods over the destinies of 
men and formulated the male trinity; Brahma, Yischnou and Siva. 
On all the altars of the Joss houses and the pagodas of the Hindoos 
these three wooden gods, hideous, fierce creatures, are the central 
figures, just as the ''holy family" Joseph, Mary and Jesus were fifty 
years ago, on the Roman altars, where today one sees only the "Vir- 
gin and child." 

While the Romanists worship the Virgin as "the mother of 
God," they accepted the Brahminical male trinity: the father. 



The Enemy of Marriage 219 

son and holy ghost. All nature is an active trinity; the male, the 
female and the holy ghost. Without the holy ghost there can be 
no life — from the rocks of ages, the fragrant flowers, the mighty 
oaks, to the master animal — MAN — it is the holy ghost — the breath 
of life — the invisible, incomprehensible, supreme essence which im- 
parts life to everything that is. 

Marriage is the first divine impulse of the animal and vegetable 
kingdom. It is the climax of physical attraction and animal de- 
sire. The progeny are the culminating source of unity of interest, 
affection and oneness in the propagation of the race and inspire the 
interests and ambitions of life. The man and woman who have not 
known the sublime exaltation of paternity and maternity have not 
fully lived; they are the fragrantless flowers in the garden of life. 

Marriage is the most important matter of legislation in the social 
system, and we find that the Hindoo laws, codified by Manou, more 
than three thousand years before the Christian era, have passed al- 
most unaltered to Egypt, to Greece, to Rome, which alone has left 
us a written law — the code of Justinian — which has been adopted as 
the basis of all modern legislation. Truly, "there is nothing new 
under the sun!" 

Marriage by the Hindoo law, is accomplished by the giving of 
the woman by the father, and her acceptance by the husband, with 
the ceremony of water and fire. 

The same form at Rome : (Digest of Justinian. ) Virgini in 
hortos deductae ^ ^ Die nuptiarum priusquam ad eum tran- 
siret, et priusquam aqua et igne acciperetur, id est nuptiae celebraren- 
tur * '^ ohtulit decem aureos dono. The union of hands as well 
as the confarreatio (or eating of bride-cake) of the Roman rite, 
are but copies of ordinances of Mariou. 

In Hindoo marriages two different epochs are to be considered — 
the betrothal and the celebration; the betrothal always takes place 
some years before the final ceremony. The same usages, the same 
distinct periods are relegated to Rome. The word betrothal 
(sponsalia) comes from the word to promise (a sppndendo), for 
it was a custom of the ancients to stipulate for the promise of a future 
wife. "Often, sufficient cause may prolong the period of betrothal 
not only for one or two, but even three, four or more years." 

The consent by contract required by Hindoo law was also re- 
quired at Rome. With the Hindoos the young wife remains with her 
family until the age of puberty. The father then sends a message 



220 The Question of Romanism 

to the husband to intimate that his rights have commenced, and that 
he may claim his wife. The same in Rome. 

Conducting the wife to the house of her husband, was in India 
as in Rome, the final ceremony of marriage, and was celebrated with 
music and feasting. 

Marriages, by the laws of Manou, are prohibited of every degree 
in the direct line; and in the collateral, to the seventh degree on the 
paternal and fifth degree of the maternal line. Lastly, the father, 
who in India marries his daughter to any one, after having betrothed 
her to another, is held infamous. 

The same in Roman Law. The Hindoo spirit is found to govern 
Roman law, even in those Haisons which modern legislation has de- 
clined to recognize. Concubinage, tolerated and regulated at Rome, is 
another Indian institution which the Romanists adopted in deference 
to tradition. The strict and pure manners of primitive Christianity 
would never have inspired the sanction of licentious love. 

These wise Hindoo laws, which have been recognized for over 
five thousand years, have, running parallel with them, laws of divorce, 
which proves that the world, from the beginning, recognized marriage 
as a civil contract that could be dissolved for cause. 

Until the latter part of the fourth century, during the pontifi- 
cate of Pope Siricius, the Romish clergy married and lived as the 
Protestant clergy of today, and on many occasions since then popes 
have been asked, in the interest of female virtue, to abolish priestly 
celibacy. 

There is at present a movement in that direction, in France, 
started by the journal ''Gil Bias,'' of Paris, which claims to be 
''strictly and absolutely a Romish view, of prime importance to the 
church of France and consequently to the whole church, of which 
France is merely the elder daughter." We are told that the text 
of a petition can be produced which the pope himself has received 
from 3,000 French priests and curates for a change in the law for- 
bidding priests to marry. 

The argument of Gil Bias is backed by the recital, with name 
and locality of four grave scandals within a year — a shoemaker 
shooting a priest found in his wife's company; a priest obliged to 
acknowledge himself a father, and two priests prosecuted in con- 
nection with criminal operations. The writer adds: 

"After having seen, heard and observed, we are able to record 
that there is scarcely a parish in France that has not had at some time 



The Enemy of Marriage 221 

or another what it is expedient to call an easy priest, whose manners 
lent themselves to suspicion or whose life lent itself to scandal. The 
French mind at the present time as regards the clergy is dubious." 

The Roman hierarchy is bitterly fighting the law of divorce, 
because, the woman who is educated to the freedom of abandoning 
a drunken brute of a husband, is beyond the spiritual guidance of a 
drunken brute of a priest. Besides, every divorce loses one or two 
families to the church. 

When celibacy was enforced, women were not honored with 
divorces; their marriages were ignored, and they were treated like 
cattle. Men who took holy orders were commanded to '^abandon" 
their wives and children, and those who refused were severely disci- 
plined. Pope Urban II was such an inhuman monster that he gave 
t he women into slavery, whom priestly husbands refused to aban- 
don. That was in the eleventh century, and in this twentieth cen- 
tury there are priests in the United States who have abandoned 
wives and children, and been welcomed into the church. 

In San Francisco some years ago, an Irishman by the name of 
Eagen, while curate of an Episcopal church married a beautiful, 
accomplished girl, by whom he had two boys. He was one of those 
Jesuits whose business is to lead Episcopal churches over to Raman- 
ism. When he considered the church sufficiently ''high" he made 
an attempt to turn it over to the Romish bishop, but the congrega- 
tion ignominiously dismissed him, whereupon, he told his wife that 
he was a priest and would go back to his church. The wife was a 
Protestant, and according to the marriage laws of the church of 
Rome, marriage wdth a heretic is null, and a man can abandon a 
heretic wife without process of law. So, the scoundrel Eagen left 
his children and their mother penniless, while he went back to the 
church of Rome to play God! 

In Chicago, a few years ago, just such a case was reported. The 
man had come out of the church; married and had two children, 
but upon abandoning them, he was welcomed back into the church. 

From the fourth to the eleventh century it was a recognized 
principle, in the church that clerical marriages were criminal, but 
they were looked upon as normal events not implying guilt, as is 
proved by the fact that they did not impede the performance of 
miracles by the parties thereto, who afterward became saints. After 
the wdfe was forced from the priest; by paying a license fee, this 



222 The Question of Romanism 

same priest could "keep about him a woman" to whom he was not 
married. 

The object of ceUbacy was to separate the sacerdotal order — 
clergy — from the rest of society; from its common human sympa- 
thies, interests and affections, through which they assumed a dignity 
superior to mankind and through which they secured their title 
to enforce acknowledgment and reverence for their superior dignity. 
In short; it was the Brahminical doctrine of priestly, "Men-Gods'' 
introduced into the Western Christian world. 

Bowling's History of Romanism tells us that the conflict in 
England was terrific! In 960 the archbishop of Canterbury, assured 
of the favor of King Edgar, compelled the secular canons to put 
away their wives, or submit to being driven out, and superceded by 
Benedictine monks. He procured the promotion of two prelates 
who were themselves monks, and this trio of bishops, the great 
champions of the monks and enemies of the married clergy, proceeded 
by every possible method of fraud and force, to drive the married 
clergy out of the monasteries or compel them to put away their 
wives and children. Rather than consent to this unmanly aban- 
donment of their families, by far the greatest number chose to be- 
come beggars and vagabonds, for which monkish historians have 
heaped upon them most opprobrious names. It was not a "survival 
of the fittest," but the unnatural, irresponsible and cruel. 

Has slavery given to the world a more savage brutality, than 
the origin and enforcement of celibacy in the Only True Church? 

To countenance these cruel and tyrannical proceedings, Duns an 
and his associates held up the married clergy as monsters of wicked- 
ness, while magnifying celibacy as the only state becoming the 
sanctity of the sacerdotal office, and propagated no end of lies about 
miracles and visions in its honor. 

In 969 King Edgar granted a commission to expel all married 
canons from the cathedrals and larger monasteries, at which time he 
thus addressed Dunstan: 

"I know, O holy Father Dunstan! that you have not encouraged 
these criminal practices of the clergy. You have reasoned, entreated, 
threatened. From words it is now time to come to blows. All 
the power of the crown is at your command. Strike boldly ; drive 
these irregular livers out of the church of Christ, and introduce 
others who will live according to rule. * * And yet this furious 
champion of chastity had, sometime before the delivery of this 



The Enemy of Marriage 223 

harangue, ravished a nun, a young lad}' of noble birth and great 
beauty, at which his holy father confessor was, so much offended 
that he enjoined him, by way of penance, not to wear his crown 
for seven years; to build a nunnery, and to persecute the married 
clergy with all his might — A strange way of atoning for his own 
libertinism, by depriving others of their natural rights and liberties." 

The history of clerical celibacy may be divided into two periods. 
The first begins with the edict of Pope Siricius in 385, when nun- 
neries were introduced into Europe, and ends at the popedom of 
Gregory VII. The other begins. with the papac}^ of Gregory and 
continues to the present time. Its entire history is one of contami- 
nation and pollution. The very fact that the laws of nature are 
forbidden produces morbid desire which absorbs the thoughts and 
inflames passions; which is proven by the stamp of gross licentious- 
ness upon ninety-nine out of every hundred celibate priests. 

In Milan, Italy, the battle waged, even fiercer than in England. 
The priests resisted to the death, the decree commanding them to 
break up their homes and permit their wives to be called harlots and 
their children bastards. 

The bishop, the priest, and the deacon are, in the popish theolo- 
gy, forbidden to marry, yet marriage, in the system of Romanism 
is a sacrament, and therefore the sign and means of grace and holi- 
ness. The Council of Trent, in its twenty-fourth session, declares 
marriage one of the sacraments, by which, according to its seventh 
session, '^a/ZreaZ righteousness is begun and augmented." But, the 
astounding record stands; that this Council as well as the Catechism, 
ignores this sacrament, which conveys true sanctity, as a necessary 
qualification of the priesthood. 

The advocates of Romanism are divided upon the question of 
celibacy, as to its being divine, human or even useful. One party 
in the popish community accounts the interdiction, a divine ap- 
pointment; commanded by God, unalterable, and sanctioned by his 
almighty fiat: This opinion was sustained by Jerome, Siricius, In- 
nocent III. and others. 

A second party reckons the celibacy of the clergy a human in- 
stitution. These in general esteem the prohibition, not a question 
of faith but discipline, prescribed, not by God but by man, and 
capable of being altered or even repealed by human authority. 

A third party accounts sacerdotal celibacy not onl}^ unecclesiasti- 
cal and inhuman, but useless and hvirtful. The opposition to celi- 



224 The Question of Romanism 

bacy, even in the bosom of the Romish communion, has in every 
age been persevering and powerful. The privation has been dis- 
countenanced by many of the ablest Romanists; such as Erasmus, 
Polydorus, Al varus and Pius II. 

''Celibacy of the clergy/' says Pope Pius II, ''is supported by 
strong reasons, but opposed by stronger. "The edicts of Siricius 
and Innocent III, by which the privation was enforced, were rejected 
by many of the clergy, but despoticably renewed under the fanatical 
monk, Hildebrande, who became Gregory VII, and issued an edict 
against the married clergy in 1073, through which he rent asunder, 
in the most cruel and inhuman manner, all home, all domestic and 
human ties. His tyranny was met with such hostility that many 
chose to renounce the priesthood rather than submit to pontif.cal 
despotism, violate their conjugal vows or relinquish the object of 
their affections. 

The German emperor and the clergy supplicated Pius IV for a 
repeal of the enactment against sacerdotal matrimony, and sup- 
ported their petition with the most irrefragable arguments; such as 
the novelty of the privation, and its dreadful consequences on mor- 
ality. 

Augustine, the Bavarian ambassador to Trent, petitioned 
against clerical celibacy, which he declared was not of divine right; 
and commanded by God. 

The French king and clergy at Paissy issued a similar petition 
to the pope in 1561, saying: "Many of the popish errors may, in- 
deed, be as absurd in theory as clerica-l celibacy, but none in practice 
has been attended with such odious and appalling effects in the 
demoralization of man. The rankest and most disgusting debauch- 
ery, originating in this unnatural interdiction, has disgraced sacer- 
dotal dignity and stained the annals of civil and ecclesiastical his- 
tory.'' 

"These theologians," so-called "entertained the grossest con- 
ceptions on these topics. Their own filthy ideas rose no higher than 
the gratification of the mere animal passion, unconnected with re- 
finement or delicacy. Their views on this subject were detached 
from all the comminglings of the understanding and the heart, 
and from all endearments of father, mother and child. Their minds 
turned only on scenes of gross sensuality, unallied to any moral or 
sentimental feeling, and insulated from all the reciprocations of 
friendship or affection. Celibacy and virginity which were unasso- 
ciated with their carnal gratifications, and which effected a super- 



The Enemy of Marriage 225 

iority to their allurements, became, with persons of this disposition,- 
the objects of admiration." 

''Matrimony, though it were gross as the conceptions of these 
authors, is far purer than their language. The sentiments and 
phraseology of the Roman saints on virginity are in point of ob- 
scenity, beyond all conception. These saints must have had a 
practical acquaintance with the subject, to which they have done 
so much justice in description. Their sanctified contamination is 
so perfect in its kind, that it could not be the offspring of mere 
theory without action. The diction as well as the ideas of Chrysos- 
tom, Jerome, Augustine and Basil would call the burning blush of 
shame into the cheek of a Juvenal, a Horace, or an Ovid. 

''Dens in modern times has outrun Basil and all the saints of 
antiquity on the stadium of nastiness. His theology, in which con- 
tamination lives and breathes, is a treasury of filthiness which can 
never be surpassed. He has shown an unrivaled genius for impurity; 
and future discovery can, in this departure of learning, never eclipse 
his glory, nor deprive this precious divine of his well-earned fame 
and merited immorality. The philosophy of Newton has been im- 
proved. His astronomy, notwithstanding its grandeur, has re- 
ceived many accessions from other discoverers. But the sublimated 
obscenity of Dens, finished in its kind, admits of no advancement 
or progression. This doctor does not bear his blushing honors alone. 
The popish prelacy of America, by adopting his refined speculations 
to promote the education of the priesthood, share in his triumph 
and the inferior clergy, who are doomed to study his divinity, will 
no doubt manifest the value of his system by the superiority of their 
theological and holy attainments. 

"A third reason for the injunction of sacerdotal celibacy arose 
from pontifical policy. Cardinal Rodolf, arguing in a Roman con- 
sistory in favor of clerical celibacy, affirmed that the priesthood, if 
allowed to marry, would transfer their attachment from the pope to 
the family and prince; and this would tend to the injury of the 
ecclesiastical community. The holy see, the cardinal alleged, would 
by this means be soon limited to the Roman city. The Transalpine 
party in the Council of Trent used the same argument. The intro- 
duction of priestly matrimony, this faction urged, would sever the 
clergy from their close dependence on the popedom, and turn their 
affections to their family, and consequently to their king and coun- 
try. Marriage connects men with their sovereign and with the land 
of their nativity. Celibacy, on the contrary, transfers the attention 
of the clergy from his Majesty and the state, to the pope and the 
Church. I'he man who has a wife and children is bound by conjugal 
and parental attachment to his country, and feels the warmest glow 
of parental love, mingled with the flame of patriotism. His interests 
and affections are intertwined with the honor and prosperity of his 
native land; and this, in consequence, he will prefer to the aggran- 
dizement of the Romish hierarchy or the grandeur of the Roman 



226 The Question of Romanism 

■pontiff. The dearest objects of his heart are embraced in the soil 
that gave them birth; the people among whom they hve, and govern- 
ment that affords them protection. 

''Cehbacy, on the contrary, preckides all these engagements, 
and directs the individual affection of the priesthood to the church 
and its ecclesiastical sovereign. The clergy become dependent upon 
their Pope rather than on their ruler, and endeavor to promote the 
prosperity of the papacy rather than their country. Ihey are not 
linked to the state by offspring whose happiness is involved in the 
prosperity of the nation. Gregory VII, accordingly, the great enem}^ 
of kings, was the distinguished patron of sacerdotal celibacy. He 
succeeded in a great extent, in the supression of priestly marriage. 
He summoned a council and issued canons, separating the married 
clergy from their partners and forbidding the ordination of any one 
who would not vow perpetual continence. He prohibited the laity 
from hearing mass when celebrated by a married priest. These en- 
actments he enforced with his usual obstinacy and with his usual 
success. The laity seconded his efforts, and refused the communion 
and baptism from the married clergy." (Edgar's Variations of 
Popery. ) 

The expectations from celibacy fell short, when realized as a 
fact, but papists were compelled to accept it. They did not, like 
the writer in Gil Bias, ask the pope to restore the right of marriage 
but, says Lecky: '^They did insist that their priests should take con- 
cubines, for the protection of the families of their parishioners." 
That the fathers complied with this popular demand is evidenced by 
the action of a council at Palencia, in Spain, which in 1322 ^^anathe- 
matized laymen who compelled their pastors to take concubines." 

In the Swiss cantons the parishioners obliged the priest to 
select a female companion, in order that the women of their families 
might be safe from his approaches. ''Nicholas of Clemangis, a Swiss 
and a leading member of the council of Constance, declared that this 
custom had become very common, for the laity were firmly convinced 
that priests never lived lives of real celibacy, and where no proofs of 
concubinage were found, they always assumed the existence of more 
serious vice." 

The history of every country declares the church of Rome the 
direct enemy of marriage. Its pagan orders of unmarried men and 
women are placed in the minds of youths as holier, higher and better 
than honest, working fathers and mothers who live to cherish their 
children; and by promoting their welfare, advance the country in 
which they live. Everywhere that the church has controlled mar- 
riage, the fees of the priests became so extortionate that the lower 



The Enemy of Marriage 227 

classes could not possibly pay them, and the licentious examples 
of the priests, monks and friars did away with all moral responsi- 
bility. 

The chaplain of Maximillian, appointed by Pius IX. wrote a 
tract which w^as published in Paris, in w^hich he said: 

'^Mexicans are not Christians; first, because they are idolators. 
Second, their religion, owing to ignorance, consists of rites and cere- 
monies. They do not know what it is to worship God in spirit and 
in truth, for Romanism has done nothing to turn them from pa- 
ganism. Sacrament is administered to children of five years of age, 
and every ceremony is made a purchasable article like merchandise. 
There is not a robber in Mexico who is not a fanatical Romanist. 
They are all covered with charms to keep the devil out. A noted 
robber had made about a million dollars. He became concerned and 
consulted a priest. A large sum was paid and a receipt taken securing 
his salvation. 

''Indulgences in crime are among the most valuable assets of 
the Roman corporation. For thirty thousand dollars Pius IX. granted 
a dispensation — plenery indulgence — absolute forgiveness — for a 
Mexican to marrj^ his own sister to keep their wealth in the family. 
For sixteen thousand dollars a man obtained permission to marry 
his niece. I am personally acquainted," says the writer, ''with this 
man. For baptizing a child, a fee of from $1.50 to $2.20 is charged 
If the government of Mexico had not taken away the cemeteries 
the people could not bury their dead, without exorbitant fees. The 
lowest marriage fee was $15.00 and that at a time when wages for 
a day's labor were twelve and a half cents. Almost every priest 
has children of his own." 

Leo XIII, only a few years ago, granted an Italian nobleman 
the indulgence to marry his niece, for the sum of fifty thousand dol- 
lars. 

^ ^ ^ ^ :^ ^ ^ 

Ecuador was the last, absolutely pope-ruled country in the 
world, and the only one on the American Continents which still 
retains its concordat relations with the Vatican; which means a con- 
tract to pay the pope heavy yearly taxes. 

Under President Arthur's administration, William E. Curtis 
was selected to proceed to Central and. South America as commissioner 
and accredited agent of the United States, to examine and inquire 
into the conditions of the States of Spanish America, and the prospects 



228 The Question of Romanism 

of commerce and trade with these countries. In his history of 
^'Capitals of Spanish America/' his account of Ecuador is prefaced 
as follows: 

^'The rule which prevails everywhere, that the less that a people 
are under the control of that church (Roman) the greater their 
prosperity, enlightenment and progress, is illustrated in Ecuador 
with striking force. One fourth of all the property in Ecuador be- 
longs to the bishop. There is a Catholic church for every hundred 
and fifty inhabitants; of the population of the country, ten per 
cent are priests, monks and nuns, and two hundred and seventy-two 
of the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year are observed as 
feast and fast days. 

'The priests control the government in all its branches, dictate 
its laws and govern their enforcement, and rule the country as ab- 
solutely as if the pope were its king. There is not a railroad or stage- 
coach in the entire country, and until recently there was not a tele- 
graph wire. Laborers get from two to ten dollars a month, and 
men are paid two dollars and a quarter for carrying one hundred 
pounds of merchandise on their backs, two hundred and eighty-five 
miles. There is not a wagon in the Republic outside of Guayaquil 
(the port), and not a road over which a wagon could pass. The 
people know i othing but what the priests tell them;, they have 
no amusements but cock-fights and bull-fights; no literature, no mail 
routes except from Guayaquil to the capital, Quito. If one-tenth 
of the money which has been expended in building monasteries had 
been devoted to the construction of cart-loads, Eucador, which is 
naturally rich, would be cne of the most wealthy nations, in propor- 
tion to its area, on the globe. 

'' Although Ecuador is set down in the geographies as a Repub- 
lic, it is simply a popish colony, and the power of the Vatican is no 
where felt so completely as there. * * So subordinate is 
the State to the church that the latter elects the president, the con- 
gress and the judges. A crucifix sits in the audience chamber of the 
president and on the desk of the presiding officer of congress. All 
the schools are controlled by the church, and the children know 
more about the lives of the saints than they do about the geography 
of their own country. There is not even a good map of Ecuador. 
* >H The social and political conditions of Ecuador present 
a picture of the dark ages. There is not a newspaper printed out- 
side of the city of Guayaquil, and the only information the people 
have of what is going on in the world, is gained from strangers who 
now and then visit the country, and a class of peddlers who make 
periodical trips, traversing the whole hemisphere from Guatemala 
to Patagonia. 

''The ceremony of marriage is not observed to any great extent, 
for the expense of matrimony is too heavy for the common people 
to think of paying it. For this the Romish church is responsible, and 



The Enemy of Marriage 229 

to it can be traced the causeof the illegitimacy of almost three-quarters 
of the population. One-fourth of the city of Quito is covered with 
conventS; and every fourth person you meet is a priest, a monk or a 
nun. 

''Until the influence of Romanism is destroyed; until immigra- 
tion is invited and secured, Ecuador will be a desert rich in unde- 
veloped resources. With plenty of natural wealth, it has neither 
peace nor industry, and such a thing as a surplus is unknown. One 
of the richest South American Republics, and the oldest, it is the 
poorest and most backw^ard." 

^ ^ jj; >;j ^ ^ >!< 

Eight years later, the Roman Catholic Review, of St. Louis, 
published the following wail against progress in Ecuador: 

"From a correspondence in El Porvenir, we learned of renewed 
persecutions against the Ecuadorian clergy. The Congress has been 
very active in venting its sectarian hatred against the Catholic re- 
ligion. It has nominated for the vacant see of Cuenca a priest of the 
diocese of Ibarra. The administrator (a Roman priest ) of said 
diocese was put in prison and only under a bond of $20,000 w^as 
allowed to proceed to Quito, to give an account of his doings. The 
college of San (saint) Vincente in Guayaquil, named after the pa- 
tron saint of the former President, Rocafuerte, had to change its 
name into Vincente Rocafuerte, because as one of the radical papers 
gives it, 'The saints ai^e unknown personages in the Republic and 
have never done the country any good.' 

"Having deprived the secular clergy of its meager income, the 
radicals in the lower house decreed the confiscation of all the goods 
of the 'dead hand,' for military purposes. Happily the Senate re- 
fused concurrence, because, as its president said, it was in violation 
of the constitution, which guarantees the right of property. He 
was answered by one of the radicals that his were the scruples of 
an old woman. The government further decreed the seculariza- 
tion of all cemeteries. Whilst Jews, Mohammedans and Protestants 
may have their own denominational graveyards, the sign of our Re- 
demption has to disappear from all Catholic cemeteries. Methodist 
preachers have been imported to take charge of the State Normal 
Schools — all for the purpose of annihilating the Catholic religion, 
which still is the State religion under the Constitution." 

H; ^< ^ ^ ^i ^ ^ ^,i 

F. A. Hazelton, in his book, "A Year of South American 
Travels," says: 

"Next to Ecuador, Peru is the most bigoted country in South 
America. Bibles are not permitted to pass the Ecuadorian custom 
house, and at the port of Callao, Peru, are Protestant Bibles that are 
practically confiscated. An American missionary was kept in 
prison eight months for preaching a sermon in Spanish. There is 
only one missionary now in the country and he is having a hard time. 



230 The Question of Romanism 

The state of morality among the priests is appaUing. They Uve 
openly with women and raise families by them. Having the sole 
authority for solemnizing marriage, the priests charge such exhorbi- 
tant rates for performing the ceremony that the common people 
do not marry. As a result, seventy-five per cent of the children now 
living in Peru are illegitimate." 

In the United States the common marriage fee of the priest is 
twenty-five dollars, and the faithful are taught that no other marriage 
is legal. Those who have the courage to ignore this priestly law, 
find themselves boycotted from heaven and hell, and all earthly 
possibilities. When a Romanist marries a Protestant he not only 
has to pay for a dispensation, but he and his Protestant wife must 
sign a contract under oath, that their children shall be brought 
up in the Romish faith. Not long ago, an Irish priest, so drunk that 
he could scarcely stand up to perform the ceremony, received such 
a certificate of enslavement of unborn children. It is the duty of 
this priest to watch this couple and see that the children are de- 
livered according to contract, in free America] 

As the Spanish-American countries may be regarded as unjust 
examples of popish degradation, let us open the pages of history 
at the city of Rome in 1870, when a vote was cast by the Italian 
people and 133,681 to 1,507 gave the city of Rome to the Italian 
nation during the reign of Pius IX, who is catalogued in the ''Official 
Roman Catholic Directory," as the two-hundred and fifty-sixth 
pope who held undisputed sovereignty over Rome and governed the 
Italian people with despotic rule. 

If Romanism can elevate a nation, its birthplace and head- 
quarters is the place where we would expect the grandest example 
of its powers. Dean Alford, in writing from Rome at this period 
said : 

''The present moral and religious state of Rome is a foul blot on 
modern Christendom and hardly to be pardoned, even among the 
darkest pages of the history of the race. It is the worst city in the 
civilized world." 

Italy, one of the fairest lands on earth: Italy, the mother of 
genius and the cradle of the renaissance, was the home of art and 
poetry; a land of song and painting. Dante's somber grandeur was 
followed by the soft light of Petrarch, Ariosto, and Boccacio. The 
wisdom of Politian and Galileo was begotten under Italian skies and 
the genius of Columbus was nurtured there. Cosmo and Lorenzo 



The Enemy of Marriage 231 

de Medici, by their princely munificence, made Florence a second 
Athens, and on the slopes of Fiesoli revived the glories of ancient 
Academia. In the Augustan age of the papacy, the boundless wealth 
of the Caesars, added to the spoils of Christendom, made Italy a 
mine of riches. 

When Pope Leo X. was at the head of the Italian Empire, in 
the sixteenth century, it stood at the forefront of the nations. Rome 
was the capital of Europe. Thither flocked the pilgrims; thence is- 
sued the decrees of the Vatican: Priests flocked there in swarms; 
The voice of Rome was supreme! But the pope's insatiable greed for 
gold, led him to flood the world with indulgences, which not only 
forgave past sins but became unlicensed privileges for future sins. 
This monstrous outrage upon social morals created such a revolu- 
tion in the church that it brought about the Reformation. 

Italy in 1870, despite its matchless climate; fertility of soil; 
the genius of its sons; its past glory and heritage of wealth; was a 
land of ruins that swarmed with bandits. The country was full of 
beggars; the masses in ignorance, and the noble Romans were re- 
duced to a race of slaves and paupers. The ''holy" city was but a 
gloomy shadow of its former grandeur. Desolation sat upon its 
ruined palaces, and the politics of Italy, foul and corrupt, were in 
the hands of the pope and his hierarchy, who owned almost the en^ 
tire country exempt from taxation. Cathedrals, churches, chapels, 
shrines, monasteriet and nunneries dotted the entire country and 
the idle, drunken, licentious monks with their confraternities, feasted 
and fattened while the Italian nation, robbed of all commercial and 
industrial pursuits, pilfered and starved. These thousands of 
priests, monks and nuns, were classified as teaehers — spiritual and 
secular — but when Victor Emmanuel took possession of the city 
of Rome with its population of almost 300,000, less than fifteen per 
cent of the people could read and write and seventy-three per cent 
of all the children were illegitimate. 

Was this degeneracy due 1^o the influence of Protestantism and 
the ''ungodly" public schools, which foreign priests in the United 
States spend much time in cursing and trying to suppress? 

No ! popery controlled the entire country, and every free or pro- 
gressive thought was crushed out as soon as it dared to raise its head! 
Romish creed had full sway, and no Protestant churches polluted the 
sacred soil of Italy! There was nothing to thwart the benign in- 
fluence of Romanism, or to prevent the full and perfect development 



232 The Question of Romanism 

of her doctrines in the personal, domestic and social conditions of 
the Italian people. 

When the American minister to Rome, in 1862, held private 
religious services in his own home, they did not dare to sing a hymn 
for fear of the ever watchful ''holy Inquisition." In 1868, a Protes- 
tant chapel, which had been erected by Americans, was suppressed by 
order of Pope Pius IX. 

^^The Roman Catholic Visitor" commented as follows: "For 
our part, we take the opportunity to express our hearty delight at the 
suppression of the Protestant chapel at Rome. This may be thought 
intolerant; but when did we ever profess to be tolerant of Protest- 
antism, or admit that it ought to be tolerated. On the contrary, we 
hate Protestantism — we detest it with all our heart and soul, and 
we* pray that our aversion to it may never decrease." 

That was only forty years ago. Today, almost' every Protestant 
denomination has a church there, the Methodists, several, and one 
of the finest Masonic temples in the world proclaims the freedom 
of thought and liberty of conscience of the awakened Italian nation. 
This regenerated land should be the glory of the church ; the brightest 
jewel in the triple crown of the pope, but it afflicts him with "in- 
consolahle grief." He knows if the country goes forward the church 
/must perish; that only through the triumph of the church can the 
nation be forced back to its grave. 

The Roman Catholic Bible, the basis of the Christian religion, 
does not teach celibacy. The priests of the Old Testament not only 
married, but the office of priest was hereditary. In the New Testa- 
ment we find that all the disciples of Christ were married except 
Paul, and he expressly says that he had a right to marry and have 
his wife supported by the church. Peter, the rock of the whole 
Romish structure was a married man. 

Brahmin priests, who are regarded as debased sensualists and 
gross idolators, profess celibacy, while their temples all have their 
associated nunneries. 

Nine sections of the Buddhist priests also profess celibacy and 
have their nunneries, but the tenth, ''the New Buddhists," marry. 

The pagan Roman priests were professed celibates, but they had 
their vestal virgins. 

There is one Section of the Romish Clergy that marries. One of 
the priests, John Wolanski, was living in Philadelphia a few 3'ears 
ago. When he appeared on the street with his family, the Irish 



The Enemy of Marriage 233 

Romanists assaulted him. He is a Ruthenian or Greek of Little 
Russia; a Maronite, which community was admitted to the Romish 
community by a bull of Pope Benedict XIV, 1741. That Pope Pius 
X recognizes this community of the Romish church is proven by the 
fact that the ''Official Catholic Directory/' 1908, gives, among the 
Romish bishops, the portrait of the ''Rt. Rev. Soter Stephen Ortyn- 
sky, Greek Catholic Bishop for the United States. Greek Ruthenian 
Rite. Consecrated June, 1907. Residence, Philadelphia, Pa." 

The Greek Catholic priests are compelled to marry before they 
are ordained, if the wife dies they cannot marry a second time, and 
generally retire to a monastery. 

The victims of celibacy have but to demand their rights as 
men, from the ignoble slavery of the corporation of Rome, and they 
will find, like the Maronites, that the court of Rome with all its in- 
fallible bombast, will submit. 

The discipline of the Romish system forces its priests into as 
idle and voluptuous lives as those of the pagan gods Jupiter and 
Bacchus. ''Domesticity'' is their common form of immorality in 
the United States, where all priests have housekeepers, often young 
girls of sixteen or seventeen years, whose illiterate parents consider 
it an honor. If a Protestant minister undertook to set up house- 
keeping with a young girl, alone, he would find himself out of the 
town in short order. Why this discrimination? When bachelors 
keep private apartments or clubs, they employ male servants, out 
of respect to their moral surroundings, but priests — under the 
cloak of godliness, set in defiance all laws; natural, civil, moral and 
religious. They are spiritual outlaws, as their records in all Roman 
countries attest. 

Signor Marino, one time caterer of the New York Club, said: 

"When I first came to America, I went to Mexico where I be- 
came the caterer for the head of the Romish priest of a large town. 
The priest was as near the impersonation of satan as ever mortal 
man could be. He had three wives — not mistresses — because they 
all had children of whom he was the father. One of the women was 
a Mestizo, half negro, half Indian; the second was a Spanish woman, 
and the third a full-blooded Toltec Indian. They lived in the 
rectory with the priest, and between them there were eighteen chil- 
dren, from the babe in arms to the eldest son — who was then about 
twenty-eight years old. I waited on table, and when they were all 
sitting down to meals there were the old priest, his three concubines 



234 The Question of Romanism 

and the eighteen children. He used to take a long cane to the table 
with him, and I have seen him thrash half a dozen of his children at 
the table while they were eating." 

Signor Marino added that there was not a Romish priest whom 
he knew in Mexico who did not keep his mistress, and what was true 
of Mexico was true of all the Spanish-American countries. He 
himself, was reared a Romanist. 

The whole structure of the corporation of Rome, rests upon the 
influence and power of its celibate priests over its women and chil- 
dren. The men know absolutely nothing of their secret doings. 

Why should not the petty priests of small towns have their mis- 
tresses when every ''holy order" of unmarried men has its accom- 
panying ''holy order" of unmarried women and its orphan asylum? 
when their cardinals and bishops keep their mistresses in magnificent 
style and so openly that after the death of Cardinal Antonelli, Sec- 
retary of State of Pius IX, his daughter. Countess Lambertini, sued 
for her interest in her celibate father's estate and won the suit. 

Civilization has but one source, the elevation of women — the 
mothers of the human race — to the exalted position of equality at the 
fire-side, yet, the pope — the partner of God, doing business in the 
name of " religion/' had, according to the last statistics, five hun- 
dred people under his palatial roof, of whom one-third were women. 
These women occupy exactly the same position to the world in this 
twentieth century, as the women of the Turkish harems. They are 
nameless women, buried from the world by a barbarous, pagan sys- 
tem that has no place in this advanced civilization. They are 
neither wives nor mothers; they are female slaves. 

Many of the ablest men in the "church," have been the ille- 
gitimate sons of cardinals, or kings or princes. When church and 
state were controlled by the pope, the position of cardinal — whose 
title is "prince of the church" — was higher than that of his father, 
when king, or his half brother, the legitimate heir to the throne. 
Thus Romanism has always placed a premium on vice. 



Chapter XXII. 



T) i V r c 



Divorce, legally instituted in India, was the same in Rome. 
The same Hindoo legislator, Manou, gives the causes for which a 
woman may separate from her husband, as follows: 

"The husband may be abandoned by his wife if he is criminal, 
impotent, degraded, afflicted with leprosy, or because of a prolonged 
absence in foreign countries." The Roman law states no other 
causes: ''Degradation, civil death, impotence, contagious disease 
and absence." 

In India, as in Rome, the adulterous wife loses her dowry. The 
husband is not obliged to restore it. 

Who are the unmarried Roman hierarchy that they should be 
treated with the least consideration on the vital question of divorce? 
They have no domestic affiliations; they have repudiated the duties 
■and honors of manhood; and are living in defiance of every law of 
God, nature and man, through perverted education. 

Some time ago a prominent Bishop wrote an article ''on the 
Great Question of Divorce," which w^as extensively copied through- 
out the country. 

The Bishop said, in part: "The subject of divorce confronts 
us every day in the newspapers. It forms a department of news, 
like the lists of marriages and deaths. It appalls us in the social 
circle, when the whisper reaches our ears that those who are es- 
teemed its ornaments have been divorced. It is an evil which seems 
to be increasing among us, which gradually reconciles us to its pres- 
ence and educates us into condoning its guilt. 



236 The Question of Romanism 

" 'Separation' as the law terms it, 'from bed and board/ or 
'limited divorce/ which does not permit either party to marry dm- 
ing the lifetime of the other, may be a stern necessity sometimes, 
to secure the defenseless from outrage and injury and threatened 
death, but absolute divorce, the setting husband and wife free by 
process of law under the authority of the state, ought to be a thing 
unknown, or an occurence so rare that it would occasion universal 
surprise and distress." 

The frequency of divorce is unquestionably a menace to the 
social structure of the day, but the question arises — Are the social 
requirements of the present up to the standard of fidelity, sobriety, 
industry, integrity and honor requisite for peaceful, contented, trust- 
ful home life. 

The lists of daily divorces have a far deeper interpretation than 
"social criticism" or ostracism. They mean shattered lives, which 
the platonic, who are satisfied with marriages of convenince cannot 
comprehend. They mean broken hearts on the altar of love, so far 
beyond the reach of "social whispers," that the angels drop sympa- 
thetic tears. It is only the heroes of life who can face the shame, 
sorrow and suffering which accompany the process of public divorce. 
In the minds and hearts of most men and women, it is a crucifixion 
of the soul which celibate libertines or fortunately mated cannot 
comprehend. It is an appalling death in life which nails the victim 
to its cross as hopelessly alone, as the Christ. 

Legal separation or "limited divorce," which does not permit 
either party to marry, is an inhuman decree; dooming the victim of 
misplaced affections, through treachery or mismating, to a life of 
solitary misery; robbing them of their birthright — the right to be 
cherished, protected and loved, or it forces them to live as "celi- 
bates," in concubinage. 

The human family has not reached the angelic standard of in- 
dividuality beyond mating, which is the divine instinct of earth life. 
The majority of the human race have not developed beyond the 
herding condition. They associate in bands; follow their leaders 
in bands and pure, seclusive mating is as far beyond their conception 
of purity of life as turtle doves above barnyard fowl. No sane per- 
son would hitch a high-tempered horse with a dray, and expect equal 
results; nor a blooded mare with an ass, j^et human beings as incon- 
gruiously mated, are taught that the yokes which bind them were 
made in heavenand cannot be broken. They must believe that it 



Divorce 237 

is divine to live these unnatural lives and develop every conceiv- 
able evil impulse in their natures, by the const ant^fii&tion of torment- 
ing, brutalizing inconsistancies. 

The Patriarchs of the Bible ''set aside" their wives for barren- 
ness and other causes and betook themselves to concubines. When 
the men of today do the same, the women refuse to accept it as a ''di- 
vine mandate from God." 

• The Bishop adds: "The sanctity and perpetuity of the marriage 
bond are the palladium of home and safeguard of society. Destro}^ 
these, domestic and social life in their integrity and purity, and you 
relegate mankind to anarchy — to a condition worse then the brute." 

Unnatural conditions destroy themselves, and a bond of any 
nature to endure in heaven or on earth must be guarded with equal 
integrity by both contracting parties, yet, it is an open secret that 
the sanctity of marriage vows lie lightly on the consciences of men, 
while the church of Rome degrades and disrupts homes by extolling 
the unmarried state. 

May not the present social upheavals and numerous divorces be 
the natural result of cowed and broken-hearted women maintaining 
"respectable homes," where incompatability, intemperance, cruelty 
and lax morals on the part of the fathers have disgusted the children 
with such mockery of "home life," as to make them wanderers on 
the earth and rebels against such "holy" slavery. How many men 
and women have been driven from homes through the discontent and 
wrangling of "respectable parents," who, OA^ercome by the miseries 
of their mismated lives, forget their obligations to their children. 

The churches were for centuries the custodians of marriages. 
The priests as the Bishop now advises, constituted themselves the 
"protectors, guardians and trustees," but the church was declared 
a failure in marital affairs, over a century ago, and today, it declares 
itself a failure. Over one hundred years ago, Napoleon introduced 
civil marriage in France, and civil marriage, or what is known as the 
"Napoleonic code," has been made the law in Italy, Hungro- Austria, 
Mexico and Guatemala as well as France. The civil service is ob- 
ligatory and the only legal ceremony, while the church service may 
follow ad libitum. 

The State is the natural custodian and should be the guardian 
of the lives and morals of its citizens from birth to death. After 
the church has banished its non-believers, its paupers and diseased 
from its portals, the State opens its arms to the l:?esotted, demented 



238 The Question of Romanism 

outcasts. Fast as the State is growing in benevolence and broad 
humanity, as well as rigorous discipline, it has not yet developed 
to full maturity of its moral duties. 

There is as much difference in the sociology of today and the 
days of our grandparents, as there is in the means of locomotion, 
yet we are spiritually and socially doomed to wear the neck-yokes 
of oxen, while we ride in motor cars. The present domestic dis- 
turbances are the natural result of the marvelous and unprecedented 
developments of the age, and like combines, trusts, and all rapid 
evolutions there is a chaotic stage, which startles and astonishes. 
The men harvesting with their scythes, and the women at their 
looms, patiently, dumbly, plodding through life were as stupidly 
contented as the early ''martyrs" who surveyed the world from the 
back of a dromedary or ass. They are both living pictures of prime- 
val humanity, that frighten sluggish minds by the lightning transi- 
tion in social conditions, which like all other progressive develop- 
ments, require new methods of government. 

We must bear in mind that sixty-five years ago there were no 
steamboats, steamcars, or electricity; only lumbering stage coaches 
or postillions, or snale-like canal boats, and a journey of two or 
three hundred miles occasioned more mental excitement and physical 
energy than a trip around the world today. 

Daily papers or magazines were rare, except in cities. Theatres 
were considered sinks of hell. There were no public gatherings where 
women went, except the churches, and in these, the men sat on one 
side of the edifice and the women on the other. Church festivals, 
quilting parties, corn-huskings, apple-pearings and harvest-homes 
were the principal methods of entertainment, and they all contrib- 
uted to the help of the neighbors. 

There was little enterprise and less ambition, but much industry 
in a plodding, ignorant way. A man spoke of his wife as his ''woman" 
and a woman of her "man." There was so little change in styles 
of dress that the best suits, woven on the home looms, like those of 
the Chinese; were meant for a life-time. There was httle money in 
circulation, and women rarely ever handled any. Most business 
was conducted on the basis of exchange of labor. Men were often 
stern masters and held the purse strings or their equivalent, with 
miserly grasp; while women meekly submitted to abject servitude 
and hard labor, often without the necessaries of life, and none of the 
modern conveniences. 



Divorce 239 

The help consisted principally of boys and girls, the' offspring 
of over-burdened homes or orphan children. If they were so for- 
tunate as to get into good homes, they were kindly treated and paid 
the generous sum of eight or ten dollars a year until they were of 
age, for working from four in the morning till eight at night. 

The sickle and flail; the loom and the spinning wheel have van- 
ished into the shadowy past, like the lumbering stage coaches. The 
world of today is a hurdy-gurdy, and its revolving panorama mingles 
the Occident with the Orient; the Artie with the Antartic. Children 
earn more in a month than their great grandfathers could earn in a 
year and work, at least, a third less time. Young women earn from 
twenty dollars per month up to the generous sum of one hundred 
and fifty, while a young woman left orphaned or homeless in our 
grandmother's time was thankful to work for a home until some 
young man took her unto himself as family drudge. 

Women who have once known the independence of self-support 
or the higher privilege of supporting worthy dependents, can never 
become the pensioners of begrudging, selfish, weak, or incompetent 
men who are in every sense their inferiors. Most of the self-reliant, 
noble, brainy women in their brave struggle have neither the time, 
nor opportunity to meet suitable companions for life. When they 
do meet those they fancy, they envelop them with their own lofty 
standard of manhood, acquired by courteous, intelligent contact 
with the world, which after marriage vanishes like mist before the 
sunshine, and they find themselves irrevocably bound to low; selfish, 
brutish creatures, wholly unfit for the companionship of high-minded 
women. Men suffer the same calamity, and there is no law of God 
or man that can force such people to remain under such debasing, de- 
grading servitude. 

The Bishop treats pathetically, the story of a boy of divorced 
parents who have both married again; but what of the lad who 
killed his drink-crazed father with a shotgun, while he was brutally 
beating his mother, who had kept out of the divorce courts? 

In this material age when common sense is the governing 
law, marriage and the choice of a partner of the home should be 
conducted in a business manner and, with at least, the intelligence 
which a thoughtful person would exercise in purchasing a horse, 
dog, cow or even a '^ registered Belgian hare." The absurd tradition 
that marriages are made in heaven, and the equally absurd antics 
which cupid is supposed to play, added to the strangely stupid, ig- 



240 The Question of Romanism 

norant condition in which the human family is held on the vital 
subject of the affectio:is, is an unsolved evolution. 

What man or woman would take a business partner on the 
slight acquaintance which nine-tenths of the peopl.e take partners 
for life? A gentleman is too often a veneered scoundrel; a lady is 
quite as often a painted fraud. But the honest one has no means of 
knowing the real character of the object of his animal attraction, 
and the designing one takes good care not to be known. 

The State should be the legal custodian of marriages. Civil 
marriage should be the universal legal ceremony. Every marriag- 
eable man and woman should be compelled to register, and pay a 
tax, like pole tax. The birth and birth-place, with their various 
places of residence; the antecedents and the cause of their demise, 
for at least two generations back, should be registered; their religious 
proclivities and early environments; size, weight, complexion, tem- 
perament, talents, professions, trades and modes of livelihood; 
whether widowed or divorced; a description as accurate as a deed to a 
piece of property should be recorded, and the record should be com- 
pulsory, as a false sense of modesty might keep many from doing 
their duty. False entries should be classed as perjury and punished 
accordingly. 

An industrious young man or woman, going to a strange place 
to engage in business should be able to go to the register and select 
the man or woman whom he or she thinks would be a suitable part- 
ner for Fife, and it should be their privilege to correspond and search 
for such a companion. Any insult or base abuse of law should not 
only be summarily and rigorously punished, but placed of record 
against the criminal. It would soon become a matter of fact business, 
in which the noblest and best, to whom we must look for the ad- 
vancement of the race, can have an honorable chance of mating, 
which is impossible according to the present social laws; on account 
of the isolated manner of living forced upon the industrious classes. 

If an honorable mechanic could find his future wife earning an 
honest living in a respectable family, he would be lest apt to find her 
in a cafe of a saloon with another man after marriage, and hurry into 
the divorce courts. If a young woman had the means of finding an 
honorable employee living an upright life, she would be less likely to 
become the victim of a scoundrel. Honest labor would prove a win- 
ning card in life, for good girls would be sought even in the obscurity 
of some one's kitchen, where, at present, they are hopelessly buried. 



Divorce 241 

When marriage becomes a sensible business compact in which 
the contracting parties must pass an examination for, and record a 
certificate of physical fitness, sobriety and industry, divorces will be 
of rare t>ccurrence and there will be no danger of race suicide. The 
laws which controlled the stationary world, religious and secular, a 
thousand years ago, must yield to advancing ''Modernism," or be 
totally abolished. 

- Domestic life is unquestionably the natural sphere of woman, 
and the natural inclination of all normal women; but the strong 
woman mated to a puny man; the clear brained woman silenced 
by a muddle-headed sot; the industrious woman held by domestic 
chains to a lazy incompetent, who cannot or will not provide, or the 
highly moral wedded to a polished gentleman, who declares that ''a 
man has as much right, to a mistress as he has to a horse," are con- 
ditions which defy the interference of priests, whose women are as 
securely locked in the convents as chained dogs in their kennels. 



Chapter XXIII. 



Tub lie Schools, the "Bulwark of the Nation 



The United States provides free education of different grades, 
for all classes, recognizing the principle that '^all the people are 
sovereigns/' making common schools, institutions of dignity, where 
the children of the rich and the poor may meet together on a common 
footing, and equally share the advantages and blessings of education 
without class distinctions which are looked upon as foes of democracy. 

Public intelligence is so intimately associated with civic virtue, 
that the education offered by our public schools even though it covers 
but a brief time in the child's life and but few studies should become 
the sacred duty of every citizen. 

The question of morals is equally involved, as abundant statis- 
tics prove that any degree of education on practical lines has a mar- 
velous effect in the diminution of crime. 

There are approximately 150,000,000 English speaking people 
on the Globe in contrast to 20,000,000 in 1800. They stand in. direct 
and controlling relation to at least 300,000,000 more. In other 
words about one-third of the inhabitants of the globe are directly 
interested in English civilization, yet the Romish priests of the 
Middle States, objected to twelve weeks of the English language in 
parochial schools, with the State to supervise, and arrayed them- 
selves aggressively against the two factors upon which we depend 
for the unification of our mixed population: The English language 
and our public schools. 

Judge Cooley said: ''Those things which are not lawful under 
any of the American constitutions may be stated thus: First, any 



Public Schools 243 

law respecting an establishment of religion: Second, compulsory 
support by taxation or otherwise of religious instruction: Third, 
compulsory attendance upon religious worship: Fourth: restraints 
upon the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of con- 
science: Fifth: Restraints upon the expression of religious belief." 

Of all the many different religious sects in the United States, 
the Roman Catholic alone, aliens under foreign control, have made 
inordinate demands; not only in State allowances for their sectarian 
parochial schools, but, among the lower classes, compel the children 
of Romish parents to attend their church schools or keejj out of 
school altogether. Their own teachers are incompetent; few of them 
could pass a sixth grade examination, and being slaves phj^sically 
and mentally to proscribed lines of thought which paralyze mental 
action, they are incapable of following; let alone developing the bright 
minds which are the natural result of the scientific unfoldments of 
the age. Parrot-like recital from a limited number of books, as far 
back as the thirteenth century, it not educating. The teacher must 
be capable of suggesting thought which will ripen in the mind of the 
child, which is exactly opposite to parochial teaching. "Give me 
the child till he is twelve years old and you can have him," say the 
Jesuits. 

^ During the tender years of childhood the brain value is deter- 
mined, and the thoughts then planted will be the roots of the tree of 
life as sure as the plum or peach can only yield its kind. The human 
intellect, like its maker, is an unknown quantity, and has been 
treated, up to the present, like a premature child in an incubator, 
woven from the chains of sacerdotalism. 

Those who pose as the teachers of the Roman Corporations, 
come to us from Romish countries, where after 1500 years' expe- 
rience, they have proven intellectual failures. They reduced Spain 
to beggary and eighty-three per cent illiteracy; and when Victor 
Emmanuel, with the help of General Cavour and the immortal 
Garibaldi, overthrew the temporal power of the popes, in 1870, he 
found ninety per cent of the Italian people wholly illiterate and 
less than five per cent could read and write. This, in the birthplace 
and home of popery! Yet, the undeveloped products of this illi- 
teracy, have the audacity to demand the education of American 
Youth! 

They controlled Mexico for nearly three hundred years, and be- 
cause their teaching left ninety-three per cent of the people in direst 



244 The Question of Romanism 

ignorance; they and their schools were abohshed. Guatemala and 
the Republics of Central and South America have all repudiated 
parochial schools; even Ecuador, has introduced public sehools. 

The lofty standard of our Public School system forges our 
nation ahead, in spite of the fact that treasonable politicians are 
paralyzing its moral and spiritual growth by criminal surrender to 
a foreign corporation of religious pirates. 

The school board of Chicago passed a resolution to furnish the 
public school books free to the children of that city, but the Jesuits, 
who furnish nothing free but tax the laboring classes of the Free 
Republic, about one million and a quarter per month 'for their in- 
ferior parochial schools, of whose teachers McCluskey, Irish Jesuit 
priest, said: ''Our instructors receive no personal compensation, 
our endowment being the LIVES OF OUR MEN:" These slave 
masters got up a petition and had the resolution of the school board 
rescinded. 

Statistics, though wearisome are forceful: The eight Romish 
countries of Venezuela, Hungary, France, Italy, Austria, Brazil, 
Spain and Belgium, with an area of 4,452,275 square miles and a 
population of 148,087,207 of which the average is ninety-one per 
cent Romish, shows an illiteracy of 60 per cent. 

''The eight Protestant countries of Victoria, Sweden, Switzer- 
land, Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Great Britain and the 
United States, with an area of 4,134,309 square miles; a population 
of which the average is eighty per cent Protestant, shows an illiteracy 
of four per cent.'' 

The United States Bureau of Education also collected the fol- 
lowing statistics for 1890: 

Illiterates in Illiterates in 

Roman Cathohc Countries. Protestant Countries. 

Austria 39 per cent Germany, less than ... 1 per cent 

Hungary 42 " Denmark, less than ... 1 '' 

Italy ...48 '' England 9 

Portugal 82 '' Scotland 7 

Spain 63 '' Norway, less than .... 1 '' 

Ireland 21 '' Sweden, less than 1 

Belgium 12 '' Switzerland \\ 

The first Religious Congress convened in Chicago, 1892, and 
from the result. Pope Leo XIII decided it should be the last. At 
this Congress Miss M. T. Elder of New Orleans, a neice of Bishop 
Elder of Cincinnati, in her essay entitled, ''Our Twenty million loss,'^ 
asked: 



Public Schools 245 

''Why is it that the greatest men of our nation are non-CathoHcs? 
The greatest men of our nation have been and are and will continue 
to be Protestants. The great philanthropists, the greatest orators, 
the greatest writers, thinkers, leaders, scientists, inventors and 
teachers of our land have been Protestants. When I reflect that out 
of 70,000,000 of this nation, we number onh^ 9,000,000, and out of 
that 9,000,000 so large a population is made up of liquor dealers 
poor factory hands, mill and shop and mine emplo5^ees, I fail to find 
material for buncombe; and yet we are all eulogizing ourselves." 

' The eminent Roman theologian, Dr. Orestes A. Browson, who 
affirmed that ''Protestantism, of every form, has not and never can 
have any right where Catholicity is triumphant," wrote thus in the 
''Catholic Review'' concerning parochial schools: "They who are 
educated in our schools seem misplaced and mistimed in the world, 
as if born and educated for a world that had ceased to exist. The 
cause of failure of what we call Catholic education lies, in our judg- 
ment in the fact that we educate, not for the present or the future 
but the past." 

Dr. Brownson seems to forget that the boast of his church is 
that "it has not changed in one thousand years; that it cannot change; 
it is infallible." 

The unnatural orders of the unnatural corporation of Rome 
cannot educate; they dare not. When their followers become edu- 
cated the vocation of the priests will be gone. A short time ago, a 
bright boy brought his geography to his teacher and asked her to 
show him where purgatory was. She said: "There is no such place." 
He answered promptly: "Oh, yes there is, for my grandmother is 
there." 

The man or woman who planted that thought in that child's 
mind is a criminal, for with it went the impression that the grand- 
mother had committed sins which could be paid for to the priest, 
in masses, like a pair of shoes or any other commodity, and with 
as little concern. It robbed the child of his birth-right; the knowl- 
edge that he, himself, is a part of God; that no man, priest or lay- 
man knows anything of the fate of the spirit after it leaves the hu- 
man body. It comes into the world alone; it goes out alone, and 
alone it must either rise to the possibility of promotion in the spirit- 
ual scale or drop back, according to its worthiness. Teachers can 
only direct and help, the fate of the soul depends upon its chance of 
unfoldment. When children are taught that they can commit all 
the sins in the decalogue, and settle their accounts by paying priests, 



246 The Question of Romanism 

they become spiritually and morally dwarfed, and in the near future, 
priests who take money to get souls from purgatory and hell will 
be sent to prison for obtaining money under false pretenses, like 
other criminals. When children are educated to use their own 
brains thoughtfully, they will cease to be automatic repeaters or 
believe that a drunken priest can go into a confession box and change 
into Christ, to forgive their sins. 

A large majority of the laity of the Romish church are in favor 
of public schools, but the attitude of the Roman hierarchy toward 
them, as expressed by the plenary council of Baltimore, 1884, is 
distinctly hostile. It then became the avowed policy to take all 
Romish children out of the public schools. Priests were enjoined 
to provide parochial schools in all their parishes, and parents send- 
ing their children to the public schools were threatened with ec- 
clesiastical penalties. The Romish press throughout the country, 
and the priests from every altar began a boycott, in the form of 
abuse and wild tirades of unbridled invective against the ungodly 
public schools. These foreign priests, subjects of a foreign power, 
demanded a division of the pubhc school fund, and inserted the wedge 
toward enforcement by a compromise system known as the Fari- 
bault, which was short-lived, but Mr. Taft has introduced it into 
the Phillippines. 

The audacity of the demand for a division of government school 
funds by the Romanists was monumental, in the face of the fact 
that there are almost two Methodists; one and a half Baptists, and 
one Presbyterian to every Romish child in the nation. 

The intelligent, loyal Romanists settled that question for them- 
selves, by disregarding the anathemas of the priests, and the gov- 
ernment should come to the rescue of the poor and ignorant who are 
being sorely and unjustly taxed by an un-American foreign corpora- 
tion. 

A few sentences from Archbishop Ireland's letter to Pope Leo 
XIII, which sound hke feeble apologies for the failure of the paro- 
chial scheme, may be interesting: 

''Everywhere the parish rectors complain of the burden they 
are obliged to impose upon their parishioners for founding and main- 
taining these schools. A majority of theCathohcs are poor, and their 
efforts to maintain their priests and institutions of charity, and to 
provide churches for the immigrants who are constantly increasing 
are very great. The pastor of one of the most flourishing parishes 
of America, informed me that the expenses of his school for the past 



Public Schools 247 

year amounted to $12,000. In order to collect that money he was 
obliged to have recourse to all possible means, and he was afraid 
his parishioners would lose patience. We have few teachers in our 
parochial schools in the United States. The Brothers of the Pious 
Schools are very few, and we are absolutely unable to procure good 
lay teachers, who find more profitable employment elsewhere. 
From this it follows that the instruction of our children is entrusted 
to Sisters. They may be good teachers, and many are, undoubtedly, 
but some are certainly inferior. It may be they succeed very well 
with all English-speaking girls, and in the German schools for boys 
and girls, because, all the German-speaking boys leave the parochial 
school after their first communion. 

''Such, however, is not the case for English-speaking boys Avho 
are obliged by their parents, to remain in the school till they leave 
it to learn a trade or study a profession, which generally happens to- 
ward the age of fifteen or sixteen. These boys are too big to be com- 
manded or taught by the Sisters, and the parents generally complain 
that their children leave the schools of the Sisters less prepared for 
the struggle of life than those who have been taught by the State 
teachers. 

''^loreover, in every parish there is a certain number of Catho- 
lics of a high class who desire for their children a better society than 
can be found in the parochial schools. In these schools are gathered 
the children of the masses and of the poorest immigrants. 

"They come in their simplicity and poverty, with the rough 
manners of their parents, from the miserable alleys and houses of 
the city. They associate only with poor children, and the destinies 
of most of them is to take the place of their parents in the w^orkshops 
and factories. In the private and State schools are gathered the 
children of the most influential classes of the community; of those 
persons who are at the head of the social, financial, commercial and 
political interests of the city. It is wdth the children of such persons 
that the Catholics of a higher standing in the United States wish, 
that their children should associate, in order that when they leave 
school to begin their social life, their manners be those of well bred 
people, and their friends be among the employees of banking houses 
and not working people. I do not say that this disposition is right, 
or that these people would not do better to renounce it in view of 
the great profit of a parochial education. I wish only to state that 
such is the fact, and in a community as ambitious and rich as America, 
it is a common and very obstinate fact. 

''Now the pastor in order to maintain his parochial school, 
holds that no children must be exempt from attending it and that 
if he cannot compel the children of the rich to frequent it, he cannot 
compel those of the poor. Consequently, in those localities where the 
parochial school cannot, by its good instruction and associations 
attract the children of the highest class, the pastor, in order to force 
the attendance, is often obliged to have recourse to spiritual censure. 



248 The Question of Romanism 

He refuses the sacraments to the children and their parents." 
Archbishop Ireland, one of the highest authorities of the corpora- 
tion of Rome, in the United States, wrote to his master, the Italian 
pope, that his foreign priests "refused the sacraments to the children 
and their j)arents/' who declined to support parochial schools, when 
the State offers them better, without price. They are boycotted 
from heaven and doomed to hell, yet, the law of the land makes 
'^compulsory support by taxation or otherwise of religious instruc- 
tion," a crime. Compulsory attendance upon the public schools 
is also defied by these foregin priests, who doom Romish children to 
vagrancy and ultimate criminality, by keeping them out of school 
altogether. 

Let us follow the distinguished prelate further in his confessions 
of treasonable throttling of liberty in the United States: 

''In cases where the children are sent to private Protestant 
schools, or State schools, the pastors refuse to adriiit them to the 
religious instruction or to the first communion, and scarcely will 
be found a paochial school, where a domestic war does not pervail. 

"Some submit themselves, others do not, and the latter and 
their children are, lost forever, to the church. The highest classes 
of our Catholics have little sympathy for the parochial schools. A 
vicar-general of a flourishing diocese in the Eastern States told me 
that when a pastor undertakes to found a parochial school he meets 
in his parish three different classes of persons — the superior class, 
that he cannot compel, the middle class, that he cannot compel and 
the poor people who want the schools. 

"These difficulties, instead of decreasing, increase daily in 
proportion to the perfection that the government schools acquire 
with unlimited money endowments, much more because our people 
know that the Holy Congregation of Propaganda requires that the 
parochial schools be 'at least not inferior to the State schools,' if 
the pastor wishes to insist on attendance." 

A long explanation of the public school system is then given, 
and of the devotion of the American people for it. To continue 
the Archbishop's statement: 

"Whatever are my hopes for the future, the practical question 
of the moment is how to provide with religious education all those 
Catholic children to whom we cannot give parochial schools, and 
it is proved by our statistics that they are sixty per cent of our 
youth. While we wait for the time, far and uncertain, when the 
government will endow our parochial schools, or when Catholics 
will be rich enough to do without any endowment, shall we permit 
that sixty per cent of our children to remain without instruction, 
or shall we intrust them unconditionally with the public schools or 



Public Schools 249 

shall we try to have at least a part of those taxes that we must pay 
for the public schools? And now I would like to ask my adversaries 
what are the plans that they would suggest in this matter." 

Here is a high dignitary of the Romish church who has long 
posed as an American citizen, and knows the law of compulsory 
education, yet appeals to the pope for advice in its treasonable vio- 
lation. This American citizen who enjoys the right of franchise 
and political leader must believe and teach that the ''Pope of Rome 
is supreme lord over all earthly powers and governments." He 
knew that Leo XIII, of whom he was asking advice, had decreed 
in 1886, that: ''The judicial functions of the church must refuse 
obedience to the State and to the laws of the country which are in 
contradiction with Rome's precepts." 

Archbishop Ireland is regarded as a"liberal Catholic," but such 
a term is a misnomer. There cannot be a liberal Romanist. As 
soon as he becomes liberal in his ideas, he becomes a standing pro- 
test — a Protestant — yet the Archbishop's expressions may be taken 
as those of the intelligent, best and loyal Romanists, who are as 
strongly opposed, as Protestants, to the low, criminal products of 
their church institutions. 

/'A house divided against itself cannot stand," and Archbishop 
Ireland wrote: 

"There are two universities in Washington — one directed by 
the Jesuits, in that part of the city called Georgetown; the other,the 
University of Washington, founded by the bishops. These two 
imiversities have never been friendly. At the instance of His Emi- 
nence Cardinal Gibbons, Dr. Bouquillon, of the Catholic University, 
wrote a pamphlet on education from a philosophical point of view. 
* * Archbishop Corrigan, never a warm friend of the University, 
asked the Jesuit Father Holaind to answer Dr. Bouquillion. He did 
so, publishing three days after a pamphlet. 

"Now, in America education is considered the safeguard of the 
institutions of the country, the durability of which depends, as it is 
believed, on the intelligent use of the suffrage, which is universal. 
It is believed also, that education is necessary to direct the use of the 
suffrage. Therefore, education is considered the pelladium of the 
nation. Americans do not ask what are the rights of the State in 
abstract. They insist upon the positive application of the measures 
that they think necessary for the preservation of the country. Dr. 
Bouquillon admitted the strength of this argument, saying that the 
State has the right to exact what is essential for its preservation, 
and maintaining that in this respect education was necessary. 
Father Holaind, on the contrary denied that education was necessary 
in this sense. Americans say that the lack of education is the great 



250 The Question of Romanism 

shame of Catholic countries, and make it an argument against the 
church. Father Holaind said in his pamphlet, that it is not necessary 
that the masses should be able to read and write." 

Here we have unquestionable proof from the two highest au- 
thorities in the United States; the Catholic University at Washing- 
ton and the Jesuit University at Georgetown; that there is a vital 
schism in the Roman church in this Republic as there is all over the 
world, between the intelligent, progressive Romanists and the out- 
law Jesuits, whose doctrine is: "Subjugation of the intellect," and 
brutal slavery of the masses through ignorance. 

When the Jesuits found that they could not get a division of 
the school funds, they began to take possession of the public schools 
by placing nuns in them as teachers. This was stopped in Pittsburg, 
where the matter went into the courts and the sisters were excluded. 
On the stand these women swore that they turned all their salaries 
over to their orders. As slaves of the corporations of Rome they 
could not claim one dollar that they earned. 

These untiring enemies of mental progress then conceived the 
idea of educating their own teachers for the public schools, until 
the time might come when they could control the situation. In 1888 
there were twelve Romish pupils in the State Normal school in San 
Jose, Cal., in 1893, there were three hundred and fifty, with an ever 
increasing number. Recently, out of thirty-four teachers appointed 
in that city, twenty-four were Romanists. In San Francisco, before 
the disaster, over eighty-five per cent of the public school teachers 
were Romanists. 

The following: ^^ Rome as an Educator;" was written by Victor 
Hugo in relation to an effort of the priests to get control of educa- 
tion in France. Since then, not. only have the convent and paro- 
chial schools been abolished, but the institutions themselves, and 
their societies of monks, nuns and Jesuits have been expelled from 
that country. 

''Ah, we know you! We know the clerical party; it is an old 
party. This it is which has found for the truth those two marvelous 
supporters, ignorance and error. This it is which forbids to science 
and genius the going beyond the 'Missal' and which cloisters thought 
in dogmas. Every step which the intelligence of Europe has taken 
has been in spite of it. Its history is written in the history of hu- 
man progress, but it is written on the back of the leaf. It is opposed 
to it all. This it is which caused Prinelli to be scourged for having 
said that the stars would not fall. This it is which put Campanella 



Public Schools 251 

seven times to torture for saying that the number of worlds was 
infinite, and for having caught a gUmpse at the secret of creation. 
This it is what persecuted Harvey for having proved the circulation 
of the blood. In the name of Jesus it shut up Galileo. In the name 
of St. Paul it imprisoned Christopher Columbus. To discover a 
law of the heavens was an impiety, to find a world was a heresy. 
This it is which anathematized Pascal in the name of religion, Mon- 
taigne, in the name of morality, Moliere in the name of both morality 
and religion. For a long time the human conscience has revolted 
against you and now demands of you, 'What is it that you wish of 
me?' For a long time you have tried to put a gag upon the human 
intellect; you wish to be the masters of education, and there is not 
a poet, not an author, not a thinker, not a philosopher that you 
accept. All that has been written, found, dreamed, deduced, im- 
agined, invented by genius, the treasure of civilization, the venerable 
inheritance of generations, the common patrimony of knowledge, 
you reject. There is a book — a book which is from one end to the 
other an emanation from above ; a book which is for the whole world 
what the Koran is for Islamism; what the Vedas are for India — a 
book which contains all human wisdom illiminated by all divine 
wisdom — a book which the veneration of the people call the Bible 
■ — the Bible! Well, your censure has reached even that — unheard of 
thing! Popes have proscribed the Bible. How astonishing to wise 
spirits; how overpowering to simple hearts to see the finger of Rome 
placed upon the book of God! And you claim the liberty of teach- 
ing. Stop! be sincere; let us understand the liberty which you claim. 

It is thelLiherty of not Teaching 

''You wish us to give you the people to instruct. Very well. 
Let us see your pupils. Let us see those you have produced. What 
have you done for Italy? What have you done for Spain? For 
centuries you have kept in your hands, at your discretion, at your 
school, these two great nations, illustrious among the illustrious. 
What have you done for them. I shall tell you: Thanks to you, 
Italy, whose name no man who thinks can any longer pronounce 
without filial emotion — Italy, mother of genius and of nations, 
which has spread over all the universe, all the most brilliant marvels 
of poetry, and the arts, Italy — which has taught mankind to read 
— now knows not how to read! Yes, Italy is of all the states of 
Europe, that where the smallest number know how to read! Spain, 
magnificently endowed Spain, which received from the Romans her 
first civilization; from the Arabs her second civilization; from Provi- 
dence and in spite of you, a world, America — Spain, thanks to you, 
is under a yoke of stupor, which is a yoke of degradation and decay; 
Spain has lost this secret power which it had from the Romans; 
this genius of art which it had from the Arabs; this w^orld which it 
had from God, and in exchange for all you have made it lose it has 
received from you — 



252 The Question of Romanism 

The Inquisitionl 

''The Inquisition, which certain men of the party try today to 
reestabhsh; which has burned on the funeral pile milhons of men; 
the Inquisition, which disinterred the dead to burn them as heretics; 
which declared the children of heretics infamous and incapable of 
any public honors, excepting only those who shall have renounced 
their fathers; the Inquisition, which, while I speak, still holds in the 
Papal library the manuscripts of Galileo sealed under the Papal signet 1 
There are your masterpieces * * This fire which we call Italy you 
have extinguished. This colossus that we call Spain you have un- 
dermined — the one in ashes the other in ruins. This is what you 
have done for two great nations. What do you wish to do for France? 
Stop! You have just come from Rome! I congratulate you; you 
have had fine success there. You came from gagging the Roman 
people, and now you wish to gag the French people. I understand. 
This attempt is still more fine, but take care, it is dangerous. France 
is a lion, and is still alive!" 



APPENDIX I. 

Substitution for Marriage 

By Father B. L. Quinn. 
■''Formerly Pastor of the Roman Catholic Church in Kalamazoo, 
Mich., who for over Ten Years Witnessed Popish Deeds of the Greatest 
Cruelty and Hypocrisy. 

Notice : 
''My purpose in publishing the facts pertaining to this secret 
organization is to warn the honest pubhc against one of the most 
dangerous associations of the age. 

"All persons who have due respect for the honor and virtue of 
their families, friends, nei hbors, and country, ought to be thor- 
oughly informed on this question of vital importance. B. L. Quinn.'^ 

" The Institution. 

''In the 3'ear 1866, Pope Pius IX sanctioned the establishment 
of one of the most appalling institutions of immorality and wicked- 
ness ever countenanced under the form or garb of religion, virtually 
adding another plague-spot to that vile body, that mother of harlots, 
Papalism, and thus giving to his clergy the right (which they had 
already taken in various ways ) to use this substitution for marriage. 

"This organization, with all its glaring indecencies, its frightful 
operations, its unlicensed privileges, its revolting and heart-rending 
outrages against all virtue and religion, is only one more outgrowth 
of celibacy; one more h^l trap set for the unwary by the pious frauds 
of a system rotten with the accumulated iniquity of ages; a system 
that can flourish only through the ignorance of its followers, the 
blindness and indifference of Protestants, and the patience of God, 
before whose law and teachings it must fall, as 'He is not mocked, 
neither will His spirit always strive.' 

"Many good, charitable people (Cathohc and Protestant) 
revered Pius IX as a saint; believed the many false reports issued 
from Rome concerning his virtues and poverty, and contributed 
generously to the appeals made frequently by his hired tools all over 
the country; though his purity was no better than his pretended 
poverty; for while he claimed to be God's representative on earth, 
pretending to help and succor the poor and needy, ostensibly pro- 
tecting the interests of the people, holding out promises of grace, 
bestowing worthless benedictions on the faithful ; this infallible hum- 
bug, after deluding the people for over thirty years in this manner 
died in poverty (?) with a fortune of twenty-three miUion dollars 
in one bank, over thirty million in other banks, and real estate with 
sundry stocks, to the value of sixty millions and more. 



254 The Question of Romanism 

''Why did he not leave some of his ill gotten gains, some of his 
'blood-money' to the people he deceived? Surely out of such a 
fortune, his women and children could have spared a few million as 
a legacy to his impoverished slaves and subjects? No — the heritage 
he left was this; 'Substitution for Marriage/ to be handed down as 
the pope's 'patent right' (or invention) wherever his church gains 
a foot-hold in the land, giving as his reason for sanctioning its intro- 
duction and extension, that it was the only way to save the church 
from public scandal, and exhibit the clergy as pure and unspotted 
before the world, though allowing so many of them to satisfy the 
worst passions of their natures. 

"So great had been the immorality of his clergy in all parts of 
the world, that this dear old saint (?) deemed himself justified in 
establishing these societies, so as to prevent heretics from discover- 
ing, if possible, the rottenness prevailing among them, from the low- 
est in office to the highest old grey-haired wolf in the fold. 

"Accordingly the best, safest, and most expedient plans were 
thought out and adopted for the enslavement of women, by making 
them 'Blessed Creatures/ or consecrated prostitutes, to be used 
vessels of election by the 'Reverend Fathers in God.' 

"Thus in many of the cities of the United States and Canada, 
there are flourishing societies, having the sanction of the pope, and 
bearing the name of Rosary, Compline, Sacred Heart, Immaculate 
Conception, or such pious titles as disarm suspicion. Understand, 
however, that all members of societies bearing these and similar 
titles are not initiated into the holy of holies, and have not been ad- 
mitted to the secret order of 'Blessed Creatures.' Only those who 
are especially fitted by disposition, training and selection are fa- 
vored; for while many are called, few are chosen, the requirements 
being too important and diversified for the glass of the people who 
are enslaved by the papacy. 

"The facts and proofs in connection with this monstrous insti- 
tution of infamy are abundant, and have been thoroughly investi- 
gated by several persons who were entrusted with the secrets of 
some of the societies in the leading cities. The first evidence came 
through the confessional, from women who had been members, and 
who had left their former homes to get rid of the burden of such a 
life. In all cases examined, the badges, pictures, instruments and 
printed matter were invariably the same. Also, the statements 
made were identical (in substance). There are now in safe keeping, 
three copies of the book, which is used as the guide or manual of the 
confraternities, on duties, etc. Also letters written by priests at 
different times from various places, are among the most convincing 
proofs of the criminal practices of this institution. Presents of 
jewelry and other ornaments, with the notes accompanying them, 
serve fully to corroborate the testimony given, which is overwhelm- 
ing and revolting in every particular, and stamps the whole affair 
as the monstrosity of the nineteenth century." 



Substitution for Marriage 255 

'' Qualifications. 

''The priest who becomes a member of these societies must have 
served in the priesthood at least seven years. This is the general 
rule, to which there can be no exception, unless a priest be a special 
favorite with the higher powers. * * In the term of seven years 
he will give evidence to his superiors of his capacity and willingness 
to deceive the people, dupe the female devotees, and play the pol- 
ished hypocrite without chagrin or remorse; or he will prove himself 
an honest and truthful man, of Christian conscience and sincere 
convictions. If the latter he is viewed with suspicion as dangerous, 
hardly suitable for the priesthood, and certainly unworthy of ad- 
mission to any of these oath-bound secret societies, for he might 
be shocked at their doings, betray the church or lead to an exposition 
of the fraud; or more than likely, he would be put out of the way (as 
many have been), by poison administered by some of the faithful 
members. 

"Great caution is employed and required to prevent the public 
from knowing or even suspecting the existence of this institution, 
and the priest who is admitted is bound by solemn oaths and prom- 
ises of secrecy in all matters pertaining to the organization. 

'The female, to be a suitable candidate for membership, must 
be perfectly pliant, docile, and obedient. She must be sound and 
healthy in mind and body. She must be considered good-looking, 
if not really handsome, at least so held in the estimation of these 
priestly judges. She must be satisfied with all proofs given in favor 
of the societies, and feel honored with the privileges thereof. She 
must be wilhng to support, if need be, any Father who may be poor 
(or reckoned poor) as^ compared with some others. She must, 
if not sick, go at every call to serve the Father, or any of the Fathers 
who hold the office of President, Secretary, Treasurer or Grand 
Chaplain. She must submit to any Father who may visit at her 
house, unless the act would be in danger of becoming known to any 
not members. She must, if possible, attend all the society masses 
and take part in keeping the altar, sanctuary and vestments in good 
order, and must also pay her portion for the purposes of the altar 
when requested, besides paying twenty-five cents a month, or that 
sum every week. This money is paid by all who are notB.C's 
but who are members of those religious societies, so that the B.C's 
have to do likewise to keep up the deception, and pay the priest for 
the honor conferred. 'Can such things be, and o'ercome us as a 
summer cloud, without our special wonder?' 

"One great principle pervading the whole membership is that 
every B. C. must deny the knowledge or existence of such a society, 
life or body of women in the church, under pain of persecution and 
death. The penalties imposed on faithless members vary according 
to circumstances. Any B. C. considered disobedient must be pun- 
ished as soon as the officers can enforce the rules of penalty. After 
admitting her faults in the presence of her companions, she is con 



256 The Question of Romanism 

demned to fast a number of days, to attend the sanctuary and altar 
an extra number of times, and as]^ to be restored to her former good 
standing in the society. Extra fees are generally required for all 
violations of rules, and are accepted as a full substitution for penal- 
ties. Should any B. C. become obstinate, she is punished until she 
submits or persecuted, if necessary, till death ensues. 

"The nuns have one day in the week (usually Friday) for what 
they call 'chapter.' The Mother sits like a confessor to hear the Sis- 
ters confess their faults. She then gives each one a lecture accord- 
ing to the nature of the offense. If the nun is a member of this 
society, and confesses that she has refused a Father, she must listen 
to a long harangue on the necessity of guarding the honor of the church 
or on the evil of exposing the priests to the temptation of having re- 
course to females outside of the Blessed Confraternity. As a penalty 
for this offense the confessing nun must seek an early opportunity 
of serving the Father, as delay would be sinful; besides, she is obliged 
to fast; to kneel while the other nuns take their meals and to scrub 
the dining room or kitchen floor several times when- there is no need 
for it. 

" Reasons for Joining. ' 

"The inducements held out for joining these societies are com- 
plex and varied, as different modes are required to suit the character, 
disposition and bearing of the lady selected. After the emotional 
nature has been worked up, as it were, to concert pitch, the sexual 
or passionate, is then attacked and success is, in nine cases out of 
ten, assured, as priests know exactly what kind of material they 
work upon. 

''How carefully and with what specious*arguments these smooth 
tongued villains ingratiate themselves into the favor of their flock, 
the initiated alone can tell; suffice it to say, they rule, they sway the 
souls and bodies of their dupes touching as if with a magic wand the 
secret springs of passion and lust, till, like a mighty chorus, the 
spirits of evil seem to congregate about them and revel in a villainy 
such as was never before perpetrated under the name of religion; 
rivaling in enormity the worst and most licentious institutions of 
paganism. 

"It may seem strange that women would join these societies 
to be made tools and fools of by these wicked priests, but when we 
recollect the training they have received from their youth up, and 
the absurdities taught them in regard to eating the real body and 
drinking the real blood of Jesus, can we wonder that they believe in 
this institution for marriage? 

"The ornaments of the chapel are made to have a special signi- 
ficance, a hidden meaning bearing on these societies. To the mind 
of the infatuated female it is clear that God and his holy church 
approve and are highly pleased with the sacred duties of this insti- 
tution. 



Substitution for Marriage 257 

''After obtaining complete control of the female's will, mind, 
heart and conscience, she is told that there is much mystery con- 
nected with the divine church and its practices, and it is the con- 
scientious duty of every one, male and female, to yield a willing and 
hearty obedience to the voice of the priest, who is the true repre- 
sentative of Jesus, and the interpreter of God's church, God's will, 
and God's mysteries. 

''The cushion on which the woman kneels, represents the one 
on which Mary knelt to receive the heavenly message from God, 
through the mouth of his angel. Every female in being persuaded 
to join must count herself as highly honored and exalted as Mary 
was, and must consider herself as promoted to a celestial dignity, 
far above the other women of the parish or city to which she belongs, 
as Mary was selected to be the mother of Christ. At first the female 
may be a little timid, and somewhat surprised to learn that the 
priest or bishop required this unusual, apparently wrong, myster- 
iously right service from her, and she may object as Mary did, in her 
innocent fear, w^hen she said on hearing the unusual announcement 
or demand, 'How can this be, for I know not a man?' But the priest, 
representing God's angel in this office, gently soothes the mind, and 
quiets the fears of his future spouse, by saying to her, 'He who will 
come upon thee is not man, but is the holy one of God, and this 
union is pleasing to him, and if any child be born unto thee as the 
fruit of this union it will be holy and blessed: therefore I say unto 
thee, as the angel said unto ^lary, fear not.' After this, the woman 
being convinced by the language of Heaven's messenger that all 
is right, gives the priest complete assurance of her- willingness to 
submit, by sa^'ing, as Mary said to the angel: 'Be it done unto me 
according to thy word.' Then there are a few mumbled Avords in 
Latin, a sprinkling of holy w^ater, a blessing asked, and the feast is 
ready for the priest, who has accomplished by mock prayers and 
ceremonies what ought to send a pang through his accursed heart. 

"There is a picture hanging opposite the cushion representing 
the descent of the Holy Ghost in the shape of a white dove, signify- 
ing to. the soul of the woman the approval of heaven and the perfect 
purity of her submission in this relation to the priest; and coming 
as a voice from above to bless their union, saying: 'This is my 
beloved son, in whom I am well pleased, hear ye him, obey him, as 
he desires, as did the holy women of old serve Jesus.' Another 
picture shadows forth the angel bearing to her the commission to 
become honored among women by joining this holy family. 

"There is also a statue of the virgin Mary to signify the exalted 
position these females will occupy in the church, and in the life to 
come, for their fidelity in this matter. 

"The flowers denote the beauty, the simplicity, and sweet- 
scented fragrance arising from, and adorning the consecrated rela- 
tions existing between these blessed creatures, and the fathers. 

"The lights represent not only the joys of heaven, but the many 



258 The Question of Romanism 

bright spirits above, looking down with beaming and sparkling eyes 
to behold these holy beings in the courts of God, consummating this 
divinely appointed act, which renders them pure and holy forever. 
The incense used at such ceremonies indicates the sweet odor sur- 
rounding such a life, and ascending to heaven as a perfume redolent 
with glory. 

''The 'holy water' signifies 'the grace of God which passeth all 
understanding' purifying their bodies, deeds, and souls, as members 
of this sacred order. Th ^ book in the priest's hand denotes the au- 
thority and sanction of heaven. The altar typifies the throne of 
God. The missal, betokens the voice of God pronouncing a blessing 
on the h^ads of his devoted children. The priest assumes to be a 
substitute for the angel, the Holy Ghost, or the person of Jesus. 
The surplise which he wears in this connection, indicates the purity 
of the holy spirit of Mary. The stole around his reck represents 
the power of Christ, and the bond of perfect union with Jesus and 
himself, and as binding the female who serves him to God through 
Jesus, so that by this tie of close union the woman and the priest 
are one, Jesus and ths priest are one, as Jesus and his father are one: 
thus the unity or oneness is perfected. 

"If all this be right, then Protestant ministers and other men 
have indeed made a sad mistake in being encumbered with wives 
and children. Why not joii the papal church, and swell the num- 
ber of fathers, not husbands, who have a plurality of spouses in 
Jesus, and th^n palm off their offspring to be supported by charitable 
institutions, instead of rearing and caring for them as true God- 
fearing parents? 

"Many arguments from the scriptures are then introduced to 
persuade these women as to the propriety and Godliness of this 
institution, and it will be seen by the following examples how they 
pervert certain passages to their own destruction, and the defile- 
ment of many. 

"These fathers and their church teach these deluded women that 
Jesus used, in this peculiar manner Mary Magdalene and other 
women, and that he pardoned the sins of many women, because they 
had loved and served him in this manner during his earthly sojourn. 
These men, although they honor and praise him in public, thus as- 
crib^ to him, in private, an immorality and passion such as so-called 
infidels have rarely, if ever, mentioned in connection with his career 
as a social reformer. 

"They also adduce, as an argument in their favor, that Peter, 
the founder of their church was a married man, and quote from the 
eighth chapter of Matthew, as found in their own Testament. 

"They assert that the clergy, from the days of Christ, to the 
present, have used women in this way, who were married to them 
privately and blessed for their special comfort, though the majority 
of the eople have been taught that such was wrong, and therefore 
not allowed. As further proof, they read the language of St. Paul 



Substitution for Marriage 259 

as found in the ninth chapter of the first Epistle to the Corinthians: 
'Have we not power to carry about a woman, a wife (or sister) 
as well as the rest of the apostles, and the brethern of the Lord, and 
Cephas (Peter), or I only, and Barnabas, have we not power to do 
this? 

"Again, they say that the Virgin Mary had many children and 
prove it by her neighbors, who generally know all about such matters, 
and as reported in the sixth chapter of St. Mark; 'Is not this the 
carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joseph, and 
Jude and Simon? Are not also his sisters here with us?' They 
conclude therefore that Mary was the real mother of many children 
besides Jesus. 

''Besides this, they produce the example of Solomon, who had 
several hundred wives and concubines; and of the patriarchs and 
prophets who were servants of God, though they too, had several 
women who served them in this most ancient, natural, and Divine 
style of wedlock. What a plaything this church and her fathers 
make of women. Scripture, God and religion! 

"They also make a very extensive use of Paul's writings to 
Timothy and Titus. For instance, in the fifth and sixth verses of 
the first chapter of Paul's epistle to Titus, whom he calls his 'beloved 
son,' they discover these words: 'For this cause, I left thee in Crete, 
that thou shouldst set in order the things that are wanting, and 
shouldst ordain priests, as also appointed (ordained) thee; if any 
be without crime, the husband of one wife, having faithful children! 
Then they make such comments on these words, which are generally 
unknown to the majority of the people, as will cancel all doubt con- 
cerning the authorized marriage of priests. 

"To prove that the bishops of the true church were married 
men, they quote the words as found in the second and fourth verses 
of the third chapter of Paul's Epistle to Timothy: 'It behooveth 
a bishop to be blameless, the husband of one wife; one who ruleth 
well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.' 
Then to show that deacons ought to be married men, they refer to 
the twelfth verse of this same chapter and epistle: 'Let deacons be 
the husbands of one wife, who rule well their own children and their 
own houses.' The eleventh verse of the same chapter and Epistle 
is then introduced to prove the right of having faithful women who 
must be considered chaste while serving the clergy: 'The women 
in like manner chaste, not slanderers, but sober, faithful in all things.' 

" Portions of the fourteenth and fifteenth verses of the same 
chapter and Epistle are then added as evidence that this was prac- 
ticed in the true Christian church: 'These things I write to thee, 
that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the 
church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.' 

"Then the whole of the sixteenth verse is read with great em- 
phasis and solemnity, as giving the key or explanation of such service 
and mysterious godliness: 'And evidently great is the mystery of 



260 The Question of Romanism 

godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, 
appeared unto the Gentiles; (women converted from Protestantism ) ; 
is believed in the world, is taken up in glory!' They claim that 
their secret association is this very mystery of godliness, and that the 
deacons, priests and bishops of the church of Jesus were chaste while 
married and begetting children, and that these clergymen 
were authorized to have one wife and several concubines, or con- 
secrated mistresses, which was according to the desire of the 'flesh,' 
purified by the blessing of the 'spirit,' accepted by the angels, made 
known to many who had so long been deprived of the favor, embraced 
and practiced by the elect on earth, and was crowned with honor 
and 'glory' in heaven. 

"In confirmation of all this they set forth the fourth and fifth 
verses of the same Epistle: 'Every creature of God is good, and noth- 
ing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanc- 
tified by the word of God and prayer.' 

"Then they bring forth the first, second and third verses of the 
same chapter to show that the papal church, and all others that for- 
bid marriage and the use of meats, 'are departed from the faith,' 
are 'giving heed to the doctrines of devils,' are 'speaking lies and 
hypocrisy.' They say, that God has created meats to be used on 
all days without restriction, and that men and women are made to 
receive and enjoy each other according to these words: 'Which 
things and persons God hath created to be received with thanksgiving 
by the faithful and by them that have known the truth.' 

"They admit that the papal church made a great mistake in 
trying to enforce celibacy, which, being contrary to nature and the 
laws of God, has been the source of shocking corruptions and scan- 
dal; but they maintain that the church has, by divine authority, 
substituted this blessed institution, rather than let the people dis- 
cover that she has been deceiving them for ages on this vital ques- 
tion. 

"Futhermore, they also admit that the explanation of the 
words 'one wife,' as given by their church, in their own testament, 
is so full of absurdity that it would destroy the inspiration and bring 
swift disgrace upon her, if followed throughout and brought to the 
notice of her subjects; she thinks it best therefore to keep their 
attention away from that and other parts of Scripture thus leaving 
them in ignorance of their many deceptions. 

Initiation 

"To make the impress lasting and give the form of sacredness 
and solemnity to the affair and its obligations, the papal church re- 
quires both the priest and the female to observe many ceremonies 
at the time of initiation. Some of the pomp, show, music, pictures, 
candles, incense, bells, holy water, together with all the paraphernalia 
used on important occasions to lure the ignorant must be called into 
requisition for the purpose of mystifying or impressing the victim. 



Substitution for Marriage 261 

The priest who is to bless or receive the female is robed in cassock, 
surplice, and stole. The female usually wears a white veil, kneels 
on a cushion before the officiating clergyman, who has power to bless 
and consecrate her for such holy uses, holding in her hand a lighted 
candle, w^hile the priest asks her the usual questions; she answers 
all promptly, and swears to obey and perform all enjoined. 

"She swears implicit obedience to all clergymen who are mem- 
bers of the society, especially to him who shall be her pastor, and 
also to be most faithful in the discharge of her duties, particularly 
in 'not revealing the secrets, of the society. She swears to watch 
the conduct and language of every female member and report the 
same to any of the priests and bishops having control. She swears 
to take part in opposing and pursuing, even to death, every member 
who may become dissatisfied with the requirements of the clerical > 
members. She swears to defend every clergyman who is a member, 
on all occasions, and deny under oath, if need be, ever}^ charge or 
statement made against him by any member who may report to 
the outside world, find fault or complain of the society or its proceed- 
ings. She swears to] submit to punishment herself, in case she 
should displease her superiors in any of their demands. If she is a 
married woman when she is admitted into the order, she promises to be 
faithful to her pastor, and to consider him, if a member, and serve 
him in all things as her only true and lawful husband, blessed before 7 
God and his church, and also agrees to abstain from serving her 
ostensible husband, as the laws of the church are more binding than 
the laws of man. She agrees to get what money she can from her 
apparent husband for the support of the priest and the church, and 
to persuade him that she, though living in the same house with him 
and receiving support as in former days, can no longer be a wife 
to him, but has to consecrate her whole being to the service of God 
and his holy church by trying to live a life of virtue and holiness, 
saying she w^ould displease God, and defile her body, by being his 
wife in that one respect, and it would be contrary to the vow she 
took when she became a member of one of the 'Blessed Confrater- 
nities' belonging to the church. Some husbands have actually be- 
lieved all this, and out of respect for the apparent religious wishes 
and scruples of their wives, have lived and are now living in the 
same house, supporting and caring for them, supposing that God, 
conscience, purity and religion are the only motives actuating their 
once loving and truthful companions, whom they wedded in all con- 
fidence and love. 

''The New Testament says no one shall separate those united 
of God in marriage. The exception to this law wa-s adultery, and yet 
the person guilty of adultery shall not marry again, while the inno- 
cent party is at liberty to marry. 

"Now here come the favored ones of the papal church, armed 
with- the pope's 'patent right' and claim the authority to separate 



262 The Question of Romanism 

those who have been legally married, laying hold of or clutching the 
victims for their own private use, lust and gratification. * * The 
papal church maintains that no clergymen belonging to her can be 
married, and does not consider the bishops and priests who have 
left her and married, as being at all married, yet secretly, she al- 
lows her chief priests and bishops, who are members of these infa- 
mous societies, to make these deluded women believe that they, as 
members, are truly honored and married, so much so, that they are 
not permitted to live as wives with their former husbands. *3l'^' 
When the females have bound themselves to observe all obligations, 
by giving every assurance that they will serve all priests and bishops, 
and respect them as the pure, holy representatives of Jesus as the 
Holy Ghost, the officiating clergyman concludes the ceremony by 
sprinkling them with holy water, and bestowing upon them the name 
of 'Blessed Creatures.' The initials, 'B.C.' at the top or end of a note 
or letter, frequently make them known to each other. 

'' Insignia of B. C.'s. 

''These Blessed Creatures have certain badges or insignia, by 
which they can be easliy recognized by members, by the fathers, 
at home or abroad. That which is considered of most importance, 
and as the greatest deception when in Catholic families and coun- 
tries, is the image of the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus in her arms. 
A very small, neat statuette of the Virgin and child is given to each 
woman soon after, sometimes before, the ceremony of admission. 
A brass or silver case, with a tiny glass door or window in front, 
enclose the image to which they pray. The Virgin is made the Queen 
or Mother and Protectress of the entire organization, and these 'B. 
C.'s pray to Mary to help them to be perfectly resigned to the will 
of the fathers, as she was to the will and demand of God, and the 
operation of the Holy Ghost, as well as to Joseph and the holy men 
of old. They beseech her to aid and assist them safely through 

all their efforts to prevent They implore her to guard 

their bodily health, and restore it if at any time it should suffer 
from duty or service in the confrafernity. They believe in the Vir- 
gin's willingness to shield them from scandal, exposure, disease, or 
death, while undergoing the operation necessary 

"Every B. C. is expected to say daily, the litany of the Blessed 
Virgin Mary (B. V. M. ) or the beads of the immaculate conception, 
or the prayer, 'We fly to thy patronage, etc' Some, if they have 
sufficient time, and are thoroughly devoted to Mary, or on the verge 
of childbirth, or in any great trouble, say the Rosary, or recite the 
Little Office of the B. V. M., The apparent piety of these women 
is in proportion to their sins, and the consequent dangers; and they 
greatly deceive honest, well-meaning people, who are ignorant of 
the secret impurity underlying these pious performances. 

"These B. C.'s wear some of the insignia, even in the best so- 
ciety without being suspected; for many Roman Catholic women 



Substitution for Marriage 263 

belong to associations having some religious titles, while they have 
no knowledge of the hidden operations of the inner circles. Each 
B. C. is provided with a ring, which is plain and is w^orn on the third 
finger of the left hand, as a wedding ring; or it may be worn on the 
corresponding finger of the right hand or on the thumb. 

''These Fathers visit Europe, Canada and different parts of the 
United States, and in all their travels, they can recognize a B. C. 
as easily as they can mumble a ^ Pater Noster.' If any change is 
made in the grips, insignia, letters, etc., for the greater security of 
the, members, the old features of recognition are retained until all 
members are familiar with the new." 

The Book. 

"A book containing the rules and instructions for the confra- 
ternity is given to every B. C. about the time of initiation, and must 
be safely guarded. 

The moment that one of them is suspected of infidelity to the 
order or its obligations, the book is taken from her. A portion of 
this book is devoted to private directions as to the care of the health, 
the cleanliness of the body, etc. Regulations governing the several 
duties, as praying, attending mass, receiving communion, the pay- 
ing of weekly or monthly fees, are given at considerable length. The 
language of several portions of this book will bear two interpreta- 
tions; the hidden and secret meaning is known only to the initiated, 
though some of the technical expressions might awaken curiosity, 
inquiry or suspicion, if a copy should fall into the hands of persons 
not acquainted with the doings of the societies. 

'There is no mention of place or person, on or in the book: 
nothing written that could lead to local or personal exposure, or 
bring odium on the church. This curious document has been printed 
for some years at one of the institutions of papal education in the 
Western States, though the chief centers of distribution have been 
in the Middle and Eastern States, with one important center for the 
Southern States. This book, or manual is sent from the printing 
office to these depots of distribution for the greater convenience of 
the members. Some of the head officers reside near or at these cen- 
ters, others near the printing establishment. (Note: Efforts have 
recently been made to have the printing done either in one of the 
Eastern or Middle States. ) 

"Though the printing establishment has been considered the 
headquarters, the chief officer of the association, who resides many hun- 
dred miles east of it, keeps a large supply at his residence or Cathedral 
and no person can obtain a copy of the book without this man's 
endorsement, or a recommendation from one of the subordinate 
officers of the society." 

The sickening horrors resulting from these licentious organiza- 
tions, which according to Father Quinn, often result in the most 
brutal murders, must be left for him to tell. 



264 The Question of Romanism 

He says that the society was first exposed by one of the Blessed 
Creatures who became so ill that she expect :d to die. She placed 
her letters, badges and book in the hands of a trusted physician for 
the purpose of exposing this diabolical institution, and upon her re- 
covery, changed her name and left the country. Father Quinn states 
that there are a number, who have positive proof of the existence of 
these organizations throughout the United States and Canada. 



APPENDIX II. 

Church Lands in the "Philippines 

Re'port of the Taft Commission, signed hy William Mc Kinley. 
U. S. Document No. 190. 

The following questions were put by William Howard Taft, 
as representative of the people of the United States; yet Mr. Taft 
as candidate for the Presidency of this Republic; after saying: 
''The Roman Catholic church in the Islands is in a deplorable 
condition," added; "As a non-Catholic, I sincerely believe, and I 
think there are no Protestants who know the conditions in the 
Islands who do not admit, that it will be of much advantage to the 
Islands, as a whole, to have the Roman church restored to a con- 
dition of prosperity.'' 

Interview with Signor Don Felipe Calderon. (Slightly abbrevi- 
ated). 

Q. How long have you lived in the Philippines? 

A. Thirty years — just my age — except for a period of eight 
months, when I made a trip to the British possessions. '•'' * I 
was born in the province of Cavite and was educated in Manila, 
but I have been through nearly all the Tagalog provinces of Luzon. 
I have resided in Manila continuously, with the exception of a few. 
trips to Batangas. 

Q. Mrs. Calderon came from Batangas? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And you visited your wife's relations? 

A. Yes. 

Q. How much personal opportunity had you before the year 
1896 to observe the relations between the friars and the people of 
their parishes in a religous, social and political way? 

A. Much; because I have lived in Manila nearly all my life, 
and in view of the conditions prevailing here, where the friar is in- 
timately connected with the social, political and other life, I have 
been able to judge of him in all those three lines; and the same maj' 



Church Lands in the PhiHppines 265 

be said of the provinces. * >i^ I have known many friars person- 
ally and nearly all the Jesuits, because I was educated by them, but 
I may add that the Jesuits are not friars. I have known nearly all 
the friars of Santa Tomas, beginning with Archbishop Nozaleda who 
w^as one of my professors. 

Q. And you have the degree of the University? 

A. Like all the other lawj^ers here, because there w^as no other 
college. All professional men received their degrees from that uni- 
versity, because it was the only one. 

Q. What class of society were the friars drawn from in Spain? 

A. I cannot state of my own knowledge, but quoting the 
friars themselves and persons who have traveled extensively in 
Spain, I should say that they came from the lowest orders of society; 
and this is corroborated by the fact that the majority, if not all of 
them, when they first come, have not the slightest conception of 
social forms or etiquette, and it might be said they have the hair of 
the dog on them. 

Q. Were there not a good many well educated friars? 

A. The fact is that they are almost totally unconscious of 
proper social forms. They act indecently and use indecent ex- 
pressions in the presence of ladies in public, to such an extent that 
I was forced, on one occasion, to throw out a friar who Avas not only 
using indecent language, but acting indecently in the presence of 
my wife. Educated men there are among them, but nearly all of 
them lack social polish^ which corroborates the fact that they are 
from the lowest classes. 

Q. What fees were actually collected by the parish priests for 
marriages and births? 

A. There really existed a schedule of fees, which was promul- 
gated by an arch-bishop named Don Balio Sancho de Santo Justa y 
Rufina. That schedule is still in force, and is posted in the cathedral 
now, but it was never carried out, and every friar charged just what 
he thought best. I don't know" this statement from hearsay, but 
from personal knowledge, because I was a member of a society whose 
purpose it was to bring about marriages between those who were 
living together but were unmarried, and I have personally witnessed 
many weddings where the fees w^ere far beyond the legal schedule, 
and in all the long time that I have been a member of this society 
I have never yet found a single case w^here a friar has condoned or 
exempted the party from payment of fees, when he knew that most 
of the marriages were conducted under the auspices of the society 
and the fees were paid by the society. 

Q. Now, as to the morality of the friars, have you had much 
opportunity to observe as to this? 

A. Considerable, from my earliest youth. With respect to 
their morality in general, it was such a common thing to see the 
children of friars that no one ever paid any attention to it, and so 
depraved had the people become in this regard that the women who 



266 The Question of Romanism 

were the mistresses of the friars really felt great pride in it. So 
general had this thing become that even now it may be said that the 
rule is for the friar to have a mistress and children, and he who does 
not is the rare exception, and if it is desired that I give names, I 
could cite, right now, one hundred children of friars. 

Q. In Manila or in the provinces? 

A. In Manila and in the provinces. Everywhere. Many of 
my sweethearts have been daughters of friars. 

Q. Are the friars living in the islands still, who have had those 
children? 

A. Yes, and I can give their names if necessary, and I can give 
the names of the children, too. Beginning with myself, my mother 
is the daughter of a Franciscan friar. I do not dishonor myself 
by saying this, because my family begins with myself. 

Q. I will be much obliged for a list? 

A. I can give it to you right now: In Pandascan, Isidro 
Mendoza, son of the Bishop Pedro Payo, when he was the parish 
curate of the Pueblo of Samar; in Imus, the wife of Cayetano Top- 
azio, daughter of a Recollecto friar of Mindoto; in 2ambales, Louise 
Lasaca, now in Zambales, and several sisters and brothers were 
children of Friar Benito Tutor, a Recollecto friar inBulacan; inQuir- 
gua, I cannot remember the last name — the first name is Manuela, 
a godchild of my mother, is a daughter of an Augustinian friar named 
Alvaro; in Cavite, a certain Patrocinio Berjes, is a daughter of Friar 
Rivas, a Dominican friar; Colonel Aguillar, who is on the Spanish 
board of liquidation, is the son of Father Ferrer, an Augustinian monk. 

Q. How do you know these things? 

A. In some cases through family relations, others because they 
were god-children of my father, and others I became possessed of the 
facts through being attorney. I myself have acted as godfather for 
three children of friars. I am now managing an estate of $40,000 that 
came from a friar for his three children. A family lives with me who 
are all the children of friars. 

Q. That was not the subject, was it, of great condemnation by 
the people? 

A. By no means. 

Q. It was a kind of departure from the celibacy, wasn't that it ? 

A. It was merely an infraction of the canonical law. 

Q. It was not a general licentiousness on the part of the friars? 

A. It was a general licentiousness, because, as I have said, the 
exception as to the rule, among the friars was not to have a mistress 
and be the father of children by her. The friar who was not mixed 
up with a woman in some way or other was like a snowbird in sum- 
mer, but it must be confessed that for the past ten years they have 
improved somewhat in this regard. 

Q. How do they compare with the native clergy in this matter? 

A. To tell the truth, they almost run together, although it 
must be said also that the latter, the native priests, are not so bare- 



Church Lands in the PhiHppines 267 

faced about it. They have a certain fear. But in this regard they 
were merely following the general rule and the general example. 

Q. That would seem to indicate that the immorality of # the 
friars is not the chief ground of the hostility of the people against 
them, would it not? 

A. That is not, by any means, because the moral sense ofTthe 
whole people here had been absolutely perverted. So frequent were 
these infractions of the moral laws on the part of the friars that really 
no one ever cared or took any notice of them; and this acquiescence 
on the part of the people was imposed upon them, for woe be unto 
him who would even murmur anything against the friars, and even 
the young Filipino women had their senses perverted, because when 
attending school they had often and often seen the friars come in to 
speak to their openly avowed daughters, who often were their own 
playmates. 

Q. Is it not a fact that the hostility against the friars does 
exist? 

A. Certainly. 

Q. Is it confined to the educated classes? 

A. It extends to even the lowest classes, but the case with the 
lower classes is that they are a great deal like a private soldier. 
They cannot avow it, for they fear they will be treated very harshly. 

Q. Do not the friars still retain a good deal of influence among 
the Avomen of the lower classes and of the higher too? 

A. Only to a slight degree. This is due to the fact that they 
see in the friars a minister of their own religion, and that naturally 
calls for certain respect. 

Q. I suppose the women here, as the women everywhere, are 
more religious than the men? 

A. Of course; and besides, they are not possessed of a great 
many details of an indecent character, of which the men are pos- 
sessed. 

Q. What do you think of the establishment of a public school 
system allowing half an hour before or half an hour after school for 
religious instruction? Would that satisfy the Catholics of the 
Island? 

A. So long as the instruction was only in the Catholic religion, 
of course. 

Q. The instruction would not be by the public school teacher. 
The opportunity would be given to every one; but as there Avould 
be none there but priests I suppose the Catholics would be the only 
ones to go. The children would only go and receive the instruction 
that their parents desired. 

A. I have always entertained the idea that the separation of 
church and state in this island is one of the most difficult under- 
takings. Possibly it is the most arduous problem that there is here, 
and I believe that the establishment of free religious instruction 
would produce a bad effect upon the people. 



268 The Question of Romanism 

Q. You do not quite understand the system I mean. Under 
the Constitution of the United States it is not possible for us to spend 
any pubhc money for an}^ rehgious instruction, but the CathoUc 
clergy seem to feel that instruction ought to be accompanied by 
religious instruction. Now, then, if we give to the Catholic priests 
the opportunity to go and meet the pupils, either before or after 
the regular curriculum, for half an hour or an hour as he sees fit to 
give them instruction, will that act meet the desires of the people for 
the union of education and religion? 

A. It would be satisfactory to the people, provided it were 
only the Catholic priests who went there. 

Q. I am glad to get your opinion, for it is a very difficult ques- 
tion. 

A. It is the most arduous question in these interrogatories and 
presents the gravest problem, for we are treating with a fanatical 
Catholic people, and besides, we are confronted by a grossly igno- 
rant people. ^ ^ The fact is that the people at large have not 
grasped the true inspiration of Catholicism — it is tinsel dazzling be- 
fore their eyes. Certain things come up and immediately the peo- 
ple turn over to fetichism and idolatry. There is a sect called the 
Colorum — in the provinces of Batangas, Leguna, Mendoro and Taya- 
bas — which has more than a hundred thousand proselytes, which is 
an adulteration of the third order of St. Francis admixed with an- 
cient idolatries, and that is the real cause of the tremendous fanati- 
cism that exists in those four provinces. It is not confined to those 
four, it is pretty general. 

Q. Does it not need the influence of a cultivated clergy? 

A. That is true if you were treating of a people who could 
understand you. What you need here is not a great knowledge, but 
to attract them by the affection. You cannot thrust aside or obliter- 
ate all these notions by any cold reason. 

Q. No; but a cultivated, high-toned clergy that was well 
educated, could not but exercise a good influence if they used common 
sense in a community like that. 

A. That is true; but if the people don't take kindly to the 
clergy, the problem is still unsolved. 

Q. What do you think about introducing American clergy here? 

A. It depends entirely upon how they conduct themselves. 

Q. Now, as to the effect of the government either buying or 
appropriating the agricultural property of the friars and selling it 
out in small parcels, and using the proceeds for a school fund — do 
you think that a practicable idea? 

A. That is practicable, and the only solution to the problem, 
and that would also solve the agrarian and social aspect of the revo- 
lution. 

Q. Is not that, as far as it relates to the friars, confined to the 
provinces of Cavite, Batangas, Manila and Bulacan? I mean 
largely? 



i 



Church Lands in the PhiHppines 269 

A. Yes, where the friars have haciendas; but still it had spread 
somewhat to other provinces where they hold no land, but it is of 
little importance. '^ 

Interview with Jose Rodorigues Infante. October 18^ 1900. 

I have resided here all my life — thirty-six years — with the ex- 
ception of twenty months, in 1893-94, when I made a tour of the 
world. * * I have my legal degree from the University of Santo 
Thomas. '^' '■' As I inherited a little money from my father and 
some plantations, I thought that the legal profession would not add 
much to my income, and so I have not practiced law. * * I am 
a licentiate of law. * * i commenced to manage the estate of 
my father in 1888. I am well acquainted with conditions prevail- 
ing in the provinces of Pampanga and also in the Visayas. During 
the Spanish regime, persons who had a high social position and were 
educated were not looked upon with any great favor by the Spaniards. 
If they traveled they were charged with being filibusters; with de- 
siring to disrupt the public order and Spanish control and conse- 
quently I have spent most of my time in my own province and 
Manila. * '^ I have had many opportunities to observe the re- 
lations existing between the parish friars and their flocks, not only 
in the province of Pampanga, but also in Bulacan, where I have a large 
number of friends where I often visited. ^ * I have not known 
many friars personalh^ because I have no very great leaning toward 
them. I have heard that a large majority of them are Asturians 
from the mountains of Spain. * ^ I really had no chance to 
judge, except the Jesuits, because they were my teachers, and the 
Augustinians, which is the order of friars in my province, and one 
RecoUecto friar, who very nearly got us all into jail in the year 1886. 
* * In Pampanga they had direct intervention in what might 
be called the private life of every individual. If they desired that 
he live at ease, he could live uninterrupted in the pursuit of his occu- 
pations; if they did not, they could make his life a torment. The 
friars directed most of their attention, if not all of it, to those persons 
in each pueblo who were of the upper class, by reason of their property 
and education — such as did not need the friars to aid them in their 
plans. The friars usually watched these people very closely so as 
to discover any way to get either property or money from them 
by making accusations against them. The methods pursued by 
the friars in the pueblos to show their prowess to the gobernadorcillos 
was something after this fashion: When a new gobernadorcillo was 
named, the friars would go to the provincial governor and say that 
he ought to impose a fine on the gobernadorcillo because he did not 
keep the roads within his jurisdiction in a proper condition. Acting 
upon this, the provincial governor would impose the fine, and the 
gobernadorcillo would apply to the parish friar to intercede for him 
with the governor. This the friar would do, asking the provincial 
governor to remit the fine, which he would do. In this way the friar 



270 The Question of Romanism 

would ingratiate himself with the gobernadorcillo, and also show 
to him what a power he had over all the political authorities. If 
the friar happened to be at outs with 'the provincial governor, he 
would utilize his influence over the gobernadorcillo to the end that 
the latter would show him all the orders that he received from the 
provincial governor before he executed the same, and if any of these 
orders met his views, he would instruct the gobernadorcillo to obey 
them; if not, he would tell him to pay no attention to them. If 
matters came to a crisis, the friar would advise the gobernadorcillo 
to either take to the woods, or to come to Manila and become a guest 
of the monastery of his order there, and then he would prepare 
charges against the provincial governor and have it signed by all the 
principal people in the pueblo. Another method of the friars related 
to the collection of their fees or stipends. They formed all the lists 
of the population of their different districts from the parish baptis- 
mal register, and purposely avoided any reference to the death 
register; consequently, whoever was baptized in that place could 
live forever, and was returned always as being alive and a resident 
of that place, even though he had died or moved, and he compelled 
the cabezas banangay, who were the tax collectors, to turn over to 
them their stipend based upon these public returns, and if they 
failed to turn the stipends over on the ground that no such popula- 
tion existed, they were put in jail through the friars and bereft of 
their position. The basis for the payment of the stipend to the 
curates in former times was the population, and every year a list of 
the population was made up ostensibly by the gobernadorcillo, but 
the only statistics there were in these pueblos were the parish regis- 
ters kept by the friars, and the friars compelled the gobernadorcillos, 
therefore, to come to them and let them revise the lists that were 
sent in to the provincial governor, and naturally increased them so 
as to increase salary. 

Q. So to swell the taxes they robbed the cradle and the grave? 

A. They augmented the cradle but diminished the grave. 
The friars had a system of blackmail by which they held the rod 
OA^er all the citizens of a pueblo, about whose habits and closet skele- 
tons they learned through making little girls of from five to six and 
seven years of age, who could barely speak, and who were naturally 
and must have been sinless, come to the confessional and relate to 
them everything they knew of the private life in their own homes and 
in places that they might visit. '^ ''' It may be said that they 
had full directions and charge of all the public works in their different 
jurisdictions, except such as were of a nature demanding the super- 
vision of a corps of engineers under the board of public works at 
Manila, who were always Spaniards, naturally, to direct the public 
works in the pueblos; they always had to live in the convent with 
the friars so as to get into their good graces, for if they did not,the 
friars would report them as being derelict in their duty or with mis- 
appropriating funds. 



Church Lands in the PhiHppines 271 

Q. What can you say about the fees collected by the priests 
for marriages, etc.? 

A. I cannot state positively what the fees charged are, but I 
can say that they are very heavy, and always increasing, because I 
have to pay the birth, marriage, and burial fees of all of my tenants 
and servants, and they are charged on an ever-increasing scale. The 
slightest improvement made to a church or convent is used as a 
pretext for enormously increasing these fees. The fees are very 
burdensome to the landed proprietor, for the Filipino, unfortunately 
when he gets an idea, acts on it without caring for the consequences, 
and if he feels like getting married, even though he is very poor, he 
will get married and have children, for all of which his landlord has 
to pay. 

What do you know about the morality or immorality of the 
friars? 

A. Too much. I have nothing to add to what Senor Calderon 
says, save cite some more names. 

Q. Have you known a good many young women and young 
men who were the reputed daughters and sons of friars? 

A. I have known a great many, and now have living on my 
own estate six children of a friar. 

Q. Were all the friars licentious? 

A. I believe that they all are. 

Q. Do you think that was the ground of hostility against the 
friars? 

A. No sir; Caesarism was. Everything was dependent upon 
them, and I may say that even the process of eating was under their 
supervision. Naturally their immorality had a slight influence in 
the case, but it became so common that it passed unnoticed. 

Q. Does the hostility exist against all the orders? 

A. Only against the four: The Augustinians, RecoUectos, 
Dominicans and Franciscans. 

Q. Why did it exist against the four and not against the Jesuit, 
Paulist Fathers and Benedictines? 

A. Because the latter not having any parishes, the people did 
not know whether they were the same or not; although we know 
historically that the Jesuits are the worst, but we have never had 
any palpable evidence. 

Q. Was this feeling in Pampanga against the friars confined 
to the leading men in each town, to four or five, or did it permeate 
the lower classes? 

A. In former times only the upper class would express their 
opinions with respect to the friars, but since the friars have left 
their curacies, the pent-up feeling of all classes of society is expressed 
and the murders of priests and the attacks upon priests which have 
recently occurred, are due entirely to the lower classes of society, 
and not even connived at or instigated by the upper classes. 



272 The Question of Romanism 

Q. Charges have been made against the friars that they caused 
deportations of Fihpinos. Do you know of such instances? 

A. Yes sir. In my own province it was seen that the large 
majority of the friars, and more especially the now deceased friar 
Antonio Brabo, had great influence in the deportation of many in- 
fluential citizens, as also in the incarceration of several of them in 
order to subsequently have them released so as to show their power 
with the authorities. I, myself, at the instigation of the friars, have 
been the victim of their machinations, for they wanted me sent to 
Manila to be criminally prosecuted; but thanks to the governor and 
to my father-in-law, who is a European, I escaped. 

Q. It is charged, also that they were guilty of physical cruelty 
to their own members and others. What do you know about it? 

A. They were cruel, not only in their treatment of their ser- 
vants by beating them, but they also took great delight in being eye- 
witnesses to tortures and beatings of men in prisons and jails 
by the civil authorities. They were always, when witnessing these 
acts, accompanied by some of the higher Spanish, authorities, and 
these acts were usually carried out at the instigation of the friars. 
One of the proofs that my own province behaved better than all 
the others — because it was under the governorship of Senor Cano- 
vas, who was a just man — is that it was the last to rise up in arms 
against Spain. * * The native priests are about on an even 
footing. All these priests now officiating have the same vices, and 
when you take into account that they were purposel}^ kept by the 
friars, from following their natural bent to obtain an education 
in order to show the Pope that there was a natural want of capacity 
in the Filipino, it can be seen why they became easy tools of the 
Spanish priests and great mimics of them in their loose life. This 
design to keep native priests from gaining a good education began 
in 1872. 

Interview with Senor Nozario Constantino of Bigan. Province of 
Bulacan, Now Residing in Manila 

A. I was born in Bigan. * * Am fifty-eight years old; 
never left the islands. When I became a lawyer I came to live in 
Manila; have been in the habit of going back to Bulacan. All my 
interests and land are there. 

Q. How much personal opportunity had you before 1S96 to 
know^ the relations, and the social, religious and political attitude 
of the friars toward the people and the people toward the friars? 

A. I had many opportunities. What the friars, acting as 
parish priests, have done for many years prior to 1896, was to com- 
mit flagrant abuses both in their public and private life. '^ "^^ 
I have known many friars personally. "^ '^ Some have received a 
fair education, but many others show that they came over here under 
the cloak of religion to gain a living. * '^ There was no morality 
whatever among the friars, and the story of immorality would take 



Church Lands in the Philippines 273 

too long to recount. Great immorality and corruption. I desire 
to state here that speaking thus frankly about the habits of the priests 
the witnesses would fear that they might be persecuted by the priests 
if it should ever a;et out what they were saving here. 

ANSWER, BY JUDGE TAFT: I don't expect to publish it. 
I expect to use it to make a report to the commission. Have you 
known of children of friars being about in Bulacan? 

A. Yes, sir. About the years 1840 and 50 every friar curate 
in the Province of Bulacan had his concubine. Dr. Joaquin Gonzales 
was' the son of a curate of Baliuag, and he has three sisters here 
and another brother, all children of the same friar. We do not 
look upon this as a discredit to a man. The multitude of friars who 
came here from 1876 to 1896 and 1898 were all of the same kind, 
and to name the number of children that they have, would take up 
an immense lot of space. There was a case, for instance, of the gov- 
ernor of the province of Bulacan (and I know w^hereof I speak, for 
I have practiced law there for many years), who w^as named Canova 
and he w^as a man who was very strict in the performance of his 
official duty — an honest and an upright man. He endeavored to 
put a stop to the deportations by the friars, and they combined and 
called upon him in a body and asked him in a threatening manner 
if he desired to remain as governor of that province. He told them 
to go to hell and they said, "Now, if you don't want to stay here, 
you had better ask to be .transferred to another province, because 
if you don't leave voluntarily you will not remain here three months 
longer." A very short time after that he had to leave. 

Q. Did not the people become so accustomed to the relations 
which the friars had with the women that it really played very little 
part in their hostility to the friars, assuming that the hostility did 
exist? 

A. That contributed somewhat to the hostility of the people, 
and they carried things in this regard with a very high hand, for 
if they should desire the wife or daughter of a man, and the husband 
opposed such advances, they would endeavor to have the man de- 
ported by bringing up false charges of being a filibuster or a Mason, 
and after succeeding in getting rid of the husband, they would, by 
foul or fair means, accomplish their purposes, and I will cite a case 
that actually happened to us. It was the case of a first cousin of 
mine, Dona Sopance, who married a girl from Baliuag and went to 
live in Agonoy, and there the local friar curate w^ho was pursuing 
his wife got him the position as registrar of the church in order to 
have him occupied in order that he might continue his advances 
with the wife. He was fortunate in this undertaking and succeeded 
in getting the wife awaj'^ from the husband, and afterwards had the 
husband deported to Puerto Princes a, near Jolo, w^here he was shot 
as an insurgent, and the friar continued to live with the widow and 
she bore him children. The friar's name is Jose Martin, an Au- 
gustinian friar. * "^ The hostility against the friars permeates 



274 The Question of Romanism 

all classes of society, and principally the lower, for they can do not- 
ing. The upper class, by reason of their education can stand them 
off better, and this is the reason that the friars do not want the pub- 
lic to become educated. 

Q. Do the friars still retain any influence over the women of 
the lower classes? 

A. Over some very fanatical women. * * The hatred is 
general. The commission may find proof of this by sending a trust- 
worthy man to every pueblo in the archipelago to ask of the inhabi- 
tants if they want a friar curate, and all of them will answer, no. 
* "^ The feeling exists against all the orders, but of course princi- 
pally against those that have acted as curates,. 

Q. I have understood feeling against the Jesuits, Paulists and 
Benedictines did not exist generally? 

A. Up to this time I know nothing of them, because they have 
not occupied any of the curacies, but I have understood that where 
the Jesuits have occupied, there have been some of them prone to 
commit abuses. 

Q. Do you know of other cases of deportations by the friars? 

A. Many, a very great many deportations, but I can not trace 
absolutely to the friars all these deportations, for they are very 
skillful in throwing the stones and hiding the hand; but there has 
been a large number of deportations that were due to no other known 
cause but the friars, for no other animosity, except on the part 
of the friars, existed against the parties deported. 

Q. What about the morality of the native priests as compared 
with the friars? 

A. There is no comparison at all. EA^en when the native priest, 
following in the footsteps of his teacher, commits abuses and immor- 
alities, he does it less openly or shamelessly than the friar. One of 
the great reasons for the objections to the friar is that the spirit of 
union and solidarity which holds their religious communities together 
prevents punishment from being visited upon the unworthy. If I 
were to go to the provincial of an order and lodge charges of heinous 
offenses against the curate of my pueblo he would say, ''I will fix 
that," and eternity would pass before it was fixed; and in some 
cases where outrageous conduct has been charged against the curate, 
and public opinion was unanimous in crying for condign punishment 
against the culprit, the provincial has arranged the matter by tak- 
ing the culprit away from that town and sending him to a better one. 
This is public and notorious. In this very case that I spoke of, 
of Friar Jose Martin with my first cousin, the latter went to Arch- 
bishop Nozaleda with letters which had passed between the friar and 
his wife. The letters were written in cipher understood only by the 
woman and the friar, and with locks of his hair and his photograph, 
which had been sent to his wife. My cousin wanted him to disci- 
pline this man and prevent him from encroaching upon his house- 
hold. Archbishop Nozaleda said that the case was within the 



Church Lands in the Philippines 275 

jurisdiction of the vicar of the province, residing at Baliuag, and 
that was the end of the case. Nothing was ever done by the arch- 
bishop or the vicar, except, as I have said before, the husband was 
deported to Puerto Princessa. I desire to say that this has never 
been pubHshed. It is a skeleton in a closet. 

Interview with Maximo Viola, of San Miguel De Maywmo. 
October 20, 1900. 

A. I was born in the Philippines. "^^ "■•' Except the time I 
spent in Europe to finish my education, a little over four years, 
I have lived nearly the whole time in the Province of Bulacan. * * 
I am forty-three years old. ^'' * I am a physician. "^ * I 
studied principally in Spain, although I have been in France, Ger- 
many and Austria. I was in Vienna in the year 1887. * * I 
practiced my profession constant!}" from the latter part of 1887 
until 1894, in Bulacan, when through persecution of the friars I 
was driven to Manila, where I remained, practicing, until 1899, then 
I returned to Bulacan where I continued to practice. ^ * I was 
the physician of some friars. "^^ * I have also had relations with 
all the friars in my own town and in neighboring towns. * * My 
practice is general through the Province, and even extends to ad- 
joining provinces and in Neuva Ecija. 

Q. They say the knowledge of a physician of the i^ner life 
of the people is more intimate than that of any other profession? 

A. Naturally. Hence I shall only make references to their 
public life, for their private and secret life is professional in its nature. 

Q. Do you know from what class of society the friars were 
drawn in Spain? 

A. In Spain I knew several friars who were sons of poor fam- 
ilies with a large number of children, and who, in order to get a pro- 
fession and livelihood, would go to the theological seminaries at- 
tached to the convents. In these seminaries they begin with the 
rudiments of an education until they are graduated, but they never 
see anybody except fellow friars, and have no touch with the world, 
and the only thing they know in the way of treatment is the treat- 
ment of the superior to the inferior. When they come over they 
become despots, and they understand no other relation. 

Q. Have you any particular information about the agricultu- 
ral property owned by the friars? 

A. Yes, sir. The hacienda of Tampol in the pueblo of Quin- 
gua and also another in Santa Maria de Pandi, these belonging to 
the Augustinians and Dominicans. The first named hacienda is a 
sugar plantation and is of considerable extent. The other hacienda 
is rice land and also of considerable size. 

Q. What political functions did the friars actually exercise 
in your parish? 

A. They exercised all functions. They were the lieutenants 
of the civil guard, the captain of the pueblo, the governor of the 



276 The Question of Romanism 

province. To show this, the friar would always watch the elections, 
and if ; ny provincial governor or any municipal authority were, 
elected by the people whom he did not desire to hold office, he would, 
for subordinate officers, appeal to the provincial governor, and from 
these governors to the governor-general, and state that if these 
officers who had been elected were permitted to assume their offices 
that the public order would be endangered, because they were Masons, 
or any other specious argument would be advanced so as to make 
the superior authorities set at naught the will of th people, and ap- 
point whoever might be thought suitable or friendly to the friar; 
but often this was not necessary, as the friar would so wield the elec-^ 
tions as to get only those to vote who were his blind followers. He 
performed the duties of heutenant of the civil guard by demanding 
of every person who came to him to be either married or to have a 
child baptized, or for burial, their cedula, which he would retain 
until such a time as the fees were paid, and then he would report 
the person whose cedula he had retained, to the lieutenant of the 
civil guard as being without a cedula, and he would be jailed until 
such time as he should get another cedula. 

Q. What was the morality of the parish priests? 

A. There was no morality. If I was to rehearse the whole 
history it would be interminable; but I shall confine myself to con- 
crete cases, beginning with the vows of chastit}", which everyone 
knows they have to take. Upon this point it were better to consult 
the children of friars in every town where there are at least four or 
five or more, who have cost their mothers many bitter tears for 
having brought them into the world, not only because of the dis- 
honor, but also because of the numerous deportations brought about 
by the friars to get rid of them. The vow of poverty is also loudly 
commented on by the fact that in every town, however poor it may 
be, the convent is the finest building, whereas in Europe or elsewhere 
the schoolhouse is the finest building. With regard to other little 
caprices of the friars, I might say that whenever a wealthy resident 
of the town is in his death-throes, the Filipino coadjutor of the 
friar is never permitted to go to his bedside and confess him, the 
Spanish friar always goes and there he paints to the penitent the 
torments of hell and the consequences of an evil life, thus adding 
to the terrors of the deathbed. He also states his soul may be saved 
by donating either real or personal property to the church. There 
are hundreds of donations of this kind which still exist. For in- 
stance, in the town of Bigaa, the altar in the church is of silver, a 
donation from the Constantine family; and in San Miguel the silver 
altar is a donation from the family of Don Cefanno de Leon, the 
grandfather having donated money sufficient to pay for it on his. 
deathbed; and if the patient dies the family is compelled to have a 
most expensive funeral, with all the incidental expenses which go to 
the church, or be threatened with deportation or imprisonment; and 
if the dead person is a pauper, and has naturally nothing to pay 



Church Lands in the Philippines 277 

with, or if he is a servant or a tenant, the master or employer has to 
pay or he will be deported, as happened to my brother-in-law, 
]\Ioises Santiago, who was a pharmacist, and was deported in the 
month of November, 1895, because he did not pay the funeral ex- 
penses of the son of the female servant in his house. The father 
of this child was a laborer, and had funds sufficient to defray the 
burial expenses, and the friar was so informed by my brother-in- 
law, and they said they had nothing to do with that, and that he was 
his master and would have to pay or suffer the consequences which 
he did. I, myself, came very near being deported under the follow- 
ing circumstances: A woman heavy with child died in the fifth 
month of gestation. The friar curate demanded that I should per- 
form the Cesarean operation upon the corpse, in order to baptize 
the foetus. I declined to perform the operation because I had a 
wound in my finger and feared blood poisoning. He told me it 
was my duty to myself and to mj^ conscience to- perform the opera- 
tion, in order that he might baptize the foetus; and I told him my 
conscience did not so impel me, and I declined to do it, and he said, 
''Take care." Those two words were sufficient to send me hurriedly 
to Manila, where I remained from 1895, the year in which this oc- 
cured, to 1899. If the dying person is a pauper, with no one to pay 
fees, the Spanish friar does not go to confess him, but sends the 
Filipino, and when he dies without burial fees his corpse is often 
allowed to rot, and there have been many cases where the sacristans 
of the church have been ordered by the friar to hang the corpse 
publicly, so that the relatives may be compelled to seek the fees 
somewhere sufficient to bury the corpse. 

Q. What proportion of the friars do you think violated their 
vows of celibacy? 

A. I do not know of a single one of all those I have known in the 
province of Bulacan w^ho has not violated his vow of celibacy. The 
very large majority of the mestizos in the interior are sons of friars. 

Q. Does a hostility exist among the people against the friars? 

A. A great deal. If you were to ask the inhabitants of the 
Philippines, one by one, that question, they would all say the same — 
that they hated the friars; because there is scarcely a person living 
here who has not, in one way or another, suffered at their hands, 
through their despotism and immorality. 

Q. Had other cases than the immorality not existed, do you 
think the immorality was sufficient? 

A. Yes; that would be a sufficient cause, for the simple reason 
that the immorality brings as a natural consequence in its train 
despotism, intimidation, and force to carry out their desires and de- 
signs; for all may be reduced to this, that the Filipino who did not 
bow his head in acquiescence had it cut off from his shoulders. 

Q. In other words, this was only a manifestation of the power 
they exercised over the people. That was one end toward which 
they used their power? 



278 The Question of Romanism 

A. Immorality was the chief end. * "^ The native priests 
bhndly obeyed whatever the friar says; they have neither individual 
will nor thought. From my own personal experience I think all 
the priests and friars are on the same level. I have never seen one 
that was pure. I don't deny there may be exceptions, but I have 
not seen them. The large majority have violated their vows of 
celibacy and chastity. For this reason I believe that Protestantism 
will have a very good field here, for one reason alone, and that is 
that Protestant ministers marry, and that will eradicate all fear of 
attacks upon the Filipino families on their part. 

Q. Have you much personal knowledge of the morality or im- 
morality of the friars? 

A. I ought to draw a distinction, for in the American sense of 
the word '^immorality" it embraces several departures from the right 
path, while in the Filipino sense it simply meant sexual departures 
from morality. Larceny, robbery, etc., were another kind of im- 
morality. The friars had great notoriety as immoral men in the 
Filipino sense. It was so common that hardly any notice was takeii 
of it. Some of the younger friars said it was merely human weak- 
ness, but nevertheless, they prided themselves upon these facts. * 
* The native priests are as ignorant and immoral, and have all 
the same defects and vices as the friars, as they were educated by 
them. * ^ They have perhaps a little less education. 

Q. What do you think would be the result generally if the 
friars attempted to go back to their parishes? 

A. I have heard many persons say that they would assassi- 
nate any friars who returned. 

Q. I have heard it said by people whose opportunities for ob- 
servation on one side of the question would be fairly good, that this 
opposition to the friars is due to the native priests and to a few men 
in each village, and that it does not permeate the mass of the people. 
To the Katipunans — 

A. I would like to ask those persons who have expressed this 
opinion, how many men they think belonged to the Katipunans. 
In the Tagalog provinces alone there were over 200,000, and it must 
be remembered that these members of Katipunan society not only 
had resolved to attack the friars, but also to go into a revolution 
in which they exposed their lives, and there were many other enemies 
of the friars in the pueblos who were not bold enough to enter into 
the Katipunan society; so I do not believe the number of the enemies 
of the friars is so small.* 



*Foot-note: The following dispatch came from Manila, August 22, 1907. 

"The government (United States ) has given orders for the suppression of 
the Katipunan flag in the Philippines and to stop the sale of Katipunan emblems. 

''The victorious Nacionalista politicians (Katipunans ) flaunt tliis secret 
society flag on all occasions, and Americans are indignant at the treatment ac- 
corded the American flag. A mass meeting of Filipinos will be held to resent the 
action of the government. 

"Final returns from the recent elections have not been received, but the 



Church Lands in the Philippines 279 

Pedro Surano Laktaw. October 22, 1900. 
I am a teacher, forty-seven years old. My degree as a teacher of 
elementary schools I got in i\Ianila; the degree of superior teacher 
I received in Salamanca, Spain, and my degree as instructor of 
normal schools I got in Madrid. '^ * In order to gain a liveli- 
hood during the late Spanish regime, I secured a position as teacher 
of one of the schools in Manila after a competitive examination. ^^ 

* I was charged with being in politics and the school was taken 
from me. I was given another school, but was sent to jail for one 
year on a similar charge, having proved my innocence I was re- 
leased, but I was never given any other school. * * I was born 
in the capital pueblo of Bulacan, showing that I am a pure Tagalog. 

* * I think I am in a position to know more about the friars than 
any other Filipino, because through my position as teacher I was 
brought in contact with them. 

Q. What political function did the friars actually exercise 
in the pueblos? 

A. All, without exception. Even those which the governor- 
general was not able to exercise. One of the most terrible arms that 
the friars wielded in the provinces was the secret investigation and 
report upon the private life and conduct of a person. For instance, 
if some one had made accusations against a resident of a pueblo and 
laid them before the governor-general, he would have private in- 
structions sent to the curate of the town to investigate and report 
upon the private life of that resident, stating that he had been charged 
with conspiring against the Spanish sovereignty. This resident was 
having his private life investigated without any notice to him what- 
ever, and in a secret way, and the report was always sent secretly 
to the governor-general; and he might be the intimate friend of the 
gOA^ernor of the province or of the gobernardorcillo of the town or 
of the commander of the civil guard in his town. He would render 
reports favorable to him, but notwithstanding this the governor- 
general would receive the secret report of the friar and act upon it. 
For instance, there have been many cases in pueblos where a large 
number of the inhabitants have attended a feast in honor of the 
birthday of the governor of the province and have partaken of his 

municipalities not heard from will not change the political complexion of the 
assembly, which is now given out as follows: Nacionalistas 31, Progressists 16 
Independents 19, Immediastas 7, ledependiastas 4, National Independenti 
Catoliso (Romanist), 1." 

It will be seen that the representatives of the Katipunan society, or pa- 
triotic Filipinos, comprise two-thirds of the Assembly, and it must be under- 
stood that this is a Roman Catholic country struggling to crawl from under the 
papal yoke, or Jesuit government, and this secret society — Katipunan — like the 
Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and other Protestant societies, is under 
the curse of the pope, and therefore objectionable to the Jesuit politicians in 
the islands, and President Roosevelt is guilty of the un-American outrage of 
suppressing their emblems, while in San Francisco, the League of the Cross march 
with the government military, flying the flag of the pope, and wearing their 
badges which proclaim their allegiance, to liim. 



280 The Question of Romanism 

hospitality, being intimate friends of his, and three or four days 
later all of them have been arrested and imprisoned, charged with 
being conspirators against the life of the governor and against the 
continuance of the Spanish sovereignty, through secret information 
received from the friar curate. This is the secret of their great 
political influence in the country, for from the governor-general 
down to the lowest subordinate of the Spanish government, thej' 
feared the influence of the friar at home, which was very great, ow- 
ing either to social position there or to power of money here, and I 
myself, have seen several officers of high rank in the army and offi- 
cials of prominence under the government sent back long before 
their times of service had expired, at the instigation of the friars 
* * The details of the immorality of the friars are so base, so in- 
decent that instead of besmirching the friars I would smirch my- 
self by relating them. 

When I was a boy of seven years of age, on the opposite side 
of the street from my house two ladies lived. They were Filipinos, 
and I noticed two little children there, and I would ask my mother 
and the servants why it was that they were prettier than we or any- 
body in the town, and I was told that the friar would know; and I 
learned he had as his mistresses two sisters living under one roof, 
and that these children were the children of either one or both of 
them; and this was done publicly, for leaving out the question of his 
avowed celibacy and chastity, he had broken another vow which 
would not permit anyone to marry a deceased wife's sister, and 
here this man was living with two sisters at the same time. * * 
In the quarter of the town farthest removed from the center, the 
family life is purer, and robberies and crimes less numerous. In a 
word, it can be truthfully said that the morality of the Filipino peo- 
ple becomes looser and looser as it nears the neighborhood of the 
convent. * * I recall one instance of the friar curate of Apalit, 
in Pampanga, who was named Gamarra, and who wag" an upright 
and thoroughly religious man. He would marry all those who were 
living in concubinage free; he would bury the poor free, and per- 
form many charitable and Christian acts, and w^ould stand between 
the authorities and the unjustly accused. The fact is that while 
he was the curate there was not a single deportation. He visited 
the sick, he comforted all those who came to him in trouble; he was 
in a word, a pure Christian minister of God, but as he was the one 
shining light amid the darkness of those who sang i nchorus the aii'S 
of immortality, he was through their machinations brought to 
Manila and placed in charge of a convent; but this was done so as not 
to injure his feelings in any way or make him believe that there was 
anything behind the removal. 

Interview with Amhosia Flores. October 24, 1900. 

I have been in the islands all my life. ^ * i was a General 
in the insurgent army. * * There is bitter hostility among the 



Church Lands in the Philippines 281 

people against the friars. * * There is a difference^ undoubtedly, 
in different localities, but it is due to the fact that in some provinces 
there is fanaticism carried to such an extent, like in Pangasinan, for 
instance, where the Dominicans have been able to keep the people 
under the influence of blind superstition, and where they believe 
that the priest is a veritable god and absolutely impeccable; but in 
the great majority of the provinces the feeling of hatred against the 
friars permeates all classes. 

Q. Do you know whether there are in these islands a great 
many descendents of the friars? 

A. Yes, sir, that is generally understood. * * i know 
several sons of friars. I can furnish a long list. "^^ * The reasons 
for hostility against the friars are many. In the first place, the 
haughty, overbearing, despotic manner of the friars. Then the 
question of the haciendas, because the conditions of their tenantry 
were very terrible. Then there was the fact of the fear which be- 
set every man; even those who through fear were nearest to the 
friars, that if his eyes should light upon his wife or daughter in an 
envious w^ay that if he did not give them up he was lost. Another 
reason was that they are inimical to educating the people. Then 
again because of the parish fees, because they were very excessive, 
always compelling the rich to have the greatest amount of ceremony 
at their weddings, baptisms, and interments, whether they wanted 
it or not, and cost them thereby a great deal, and if they did not 
accede to the payment they would say they w^ere masons or fili- 
busters. 

Q- Do you think if there were no other reason, that their im- 
morality would have made them unpopular? 

A. That would be sufficient for this reason: That the means 
which they used to carry out their purposes with respect to women 
were most grievous and oppressive. If they had merely desired a 
woman and courted her, nothing would have been said, but if the 
woman declined to allow their advances they used every effort in 
their power to compel her and her relatives to succumb. '^' ^ The 
present native priests are naturally contaminated by the friars, 
but although many of them have their amorous relations with women, 
they do it in a quiet way. They don't use any force to carry out their 
ends. '^' * The people desire to be educated. Very much so, 
and they have also shown a great desire to instruct themselves and 
educate themselves. 

Interview with H. Phelps Whitmarsh. November 3, 1900 

My name is H. Phelps Whitmarsh. I was born in Medoc, 
Canada. I am a citizen of the United States. My father is an 
American. I am a writer and journalist: mainly for the Century, 
Atlantic Monthly and Outlook. I have been all through the part of 
the archipelago occupied by the American troops and a good deal 
not occupied. I can talk Spanish. 



282 The Question of Romanism 

Q. And your living with them and going among them was to 
observe their habits, views and opinions? 

A. Yes; for that and nothing else. 

Q. At the time you were with them who was conducting the 
religious functions, if any, in the majority of cases? 

A. In Luzon, generally, the religious functions were con- 
ducted by the Filipino priests, but I think I cannot say in the ma- 
jority of cases, for in the Visayas, Mindanao, and Jolo there were 
no priests. 

Q. Did you talk with the people of their sentiments toward 
the parish priests under the Spanisb regime, and what did you find 
their feeling to be with respect to them? 

A. I think with one exception, which stands out because it 
is an exception, the people always declare themselves opposed to 
having the friars back. * "^ They told me lots of stories about 
the friars. "^ '^ The commonest people are very bitter, except 
one town in northern Luzon. '^ * The grounds were mainly 
that the priests held them under, oppressed them, robbed them, and 
that they used their women and daughters just as they pleased. 

Q. Did you hear of instances of deportation through the 
agency of the priests? 

A. Yes, I have heard that nobody was allowed in certain sec- 
tions to go away from the town without the permit of the friars, 
and that the friars often sent them away, and they were under the 
thumb of the friars. * * That the friar robbed them in the vi- 
cinity of the railroads by forcing the people to sell their rice to him 
at the prices which the friar made, and not allowing the people to 
send their own products to market. "^ * The fees for religious 
functions were usually made according to a man's station. The 
friar charged what he pleased and if he said a certain sum was 
necessary that sum had to be paid or he would not conduct the 
burials etc. * * There was scarcely a town that I did not either 
see or hear of the children of friars. "^ * The native priests were 
not much better in regard to morality. >!< * I have had to re- 
move one or two because the congregation said they would not stand 
it and to preserve peace I had them moved away. "^ * In some 
cases it was women and in others drunkenness. * "^ To be plain, 
Judge, there is no morality in them, not a particle. They gamble 
in their convents; they send for members of their congregations to 
gamble with them. There is no morality. 

Evidence of Florentino Torres Attorney- General of the Islands under 
Military Government of the United States. 

Answers to the Interrogatories. 

As regards the religious relation saving a few exceptions where 
sincerity and good faith were noted in the conduct of certain friar 
curates in the matter of teaching the rudiments of the Catholic re- 



Church Lands in the PhiUppines 283 

ligion, and every thing relating to worship and its rites, the large 
majority discharged their ministry according to monastic traditions 
in a routine way, tending to the ends of the orders, and, taking no 
care to make clear the foundation and essence of the Catholic dogma 
and beliefs, they endeavored only to effect external manifestations 
such as processions and church ceremonies, with the constant view 
of adding to their profits through parochial fees, of influencing and 
dominating the minds of the faithful and believers, and of always 
favoring their personal interests, and those of the community to 
which they belonged; exploiting the piety and fanaticism of the 
pueblos in the name of heaven and to the positive benefit of the 
friar. It is not the spread of the faith nor the salvation of souls 
which were as a general rule the object pursued, but rather the pre- 
ponderance and the predominance of the monastic corporation, 
and the incessant accumulation of considerable wealtli. 

As a general rule, charity and love of the neighbor have dis- 
appeared, save in the rarest cases, and when the name of God is in- 
voked before the multitudes He is represented not as the just and 
merciful God, but as the vengeful and exterminating, giving the 
believers to understand that, unless they submitted themselves 
wholly to the will and caprice of the friar curate, their souls after 
death would not enter into heaven. 

The social relations which the friars have maintained with the 
Filipinos are the most injurious, and opposed to culture and the 
moral and material progress of the latter. They have endeavored 
to keep the Filipinos in ignorance, opposing wherever they could 
bring their pressure to bear, the teaching of the Spanish language. 
They have condemned in their sermons and private conversation 
every desire for culture and civilization; antagonizing the best pur- 
poses of the Madrid government and the islands in their meager 
reforms in behalf of the progress and education of the Filipinos. 
They have arrogated to themselves the title of mentors and directors. 

It can be asserted without exaggeration, that the friars have 
been and are a fatal hindrance to the advancement, moral and ma- 
terial, of this country; from the fact that they have devoted them- 
selves to keeping society in ignorance, and as though it lived in the 
middle ages or in the mediaeval epoch of remote centuries; and lastly, 
as priests and curates the majority of them are living examples of 
immorality, of disorder in the towns, and of disobedience and re- 
sistance to the constitutional powers and the authorities, encouraged 
by the impunity guaranteed by the weakness of the governors and 
officials; vitiated with fetichism and hypocrisy, and by the irre- 
sistable omnipotence of each monarchial corporation possessing im- 
mense wealth. The curate friars were agents and representatives 
of a powerful theocratic feudalism, which has been ruling this coun- 
try for centuries, without any sign of responsibility of any kind, 
through civil and military officials appointed by the Spanish govern- 
ment, with the more or less intervention of the commissary friars 



284 The Question of Romanism 

residing in the capital of Spain. As the CathoHc church in these 
islands was and still is completely monopolized and dominated by 
them they controlled the complaisant and suicidal governments of 
Madrid and the deceived Roman curia, and managed so that the ma- 
jority of archbishops and bishops of this country should always be 
friars; and in the past forty years, the friar succeeded, absolutely, in 
monopolizing the miter to the extent that the priests were wholly 
excluded from the bishoprics, including Peninsular priests; despite 
the exalted patriotism which the friars preach. From these facts 
the political relations existing between the friars and the Filipinos 
is easily deducted. 

With respect to the morality of the friars, in each town and 
locality the manner of living of the curate friar was publicly known 
and talked of; for if there are any leading exemplary lives of irre- 
proachable conduct, there were others living examples of scandalous 
abuses, vice and corruption. Gaming, concubinage and orgies, or 
loose diversions in company with persons of the other sex were well 
known to parish priests, especially in the provinces, and in pueblos 
somewhat removed from the residences of the bishops. In many 
pueblos the concubine and children of the friars were publicly known 
and pointed out, and the colleges existing in this capital used to be, 
and still are, filled with youths of both sexes whose features reveal 
their origin and birth. 

The detective work of the friar curates and their false accusations 
and slanders sent many and an innumerable number of the peace- 
fully inclined to the revolutionar}" ranks, because between the hor- 
rible punishments and outrages which produced death slowly, and 
death in the open field, many preferred the latter. The greater 
part of the well-to-do and cultured people of the provinces and many 
from this capital embraced the cause of the rebellion, forced thereto 
by the persecutions and false accusations made by many jingoistic 
Spanish patriots and the friars, rather than of their own notion, and 
also because of the outrages, ferocious punishments, and most severe 
penalties imposed on persons that the people believed to be innocent. 

Jose Ros 

To the American Civil Commission: (Translation. ) 

The curate of Balingassay, who was a Jesuit, because a joint 
owner of a piece of land which the friar's order had appropriated 
because it was owed a sum of money by the Spaniard, who requested 
the return of his property of the government, and he could not pay 
the rent of the parcel of ground he was working, burned his house, 
the curate himself applying the torch, and ordering that all the corn 
which had been sowed, and the cocoanut trees planted three or four 
years before, to be cut down. In short, everything the poor man 
had on the ground was destroyed. 

This same curate compelled a poor widow to sell, at a price named 
by him, a piece of ground out of which she made a living for herself 



Church Lands in the Philippines 285 

and her little ones, threatening her with punishment in this world 
and the next in case of refusal. 

Franco Gonzales 

Answers to the Interrogatories. 

Here is sought the narration of some fact, and although the 
scandalous immorality of the parish friar is a current thing in these 
pueblos, I shall relate what I remember about Father Cienfuegos, 
a Dominican friar, curate of the pueblo of Tayug (Pangasenan) 
about the years 1884 or 1885. This friar, addicted to petticoats, 
was accustomed to play ''monte" with his mistress and other neigh- 
bors in his own convent; and being asked one day by a Spaniard 
why he permitted gambling in his house, the good father replied, 
between drinks, that he needed resources for his wife, and that he 
found this means very profitable. 

As a sample of what a displeased parish priest is capable of I 
shall relate what I witnessed about the year 1867 or 1868 in Rosales 
(NeuvaEcija) on a feast day after high mass at the very moment 
in which the people were leaving the church, the curate of this pueblo, 
Fr. Raimundo Gallardo, a Franciscan, with his sleeves rolled up, 
was in front of the principal entrance to the church belaboring with 
a rattan until he no longer had strength to continue, the shoulders 
of a man, who though standing was strongly tied to a stepladder. 
The cause for so brutal a punishment was due to his having dared 
to collect in the said town for masses for the famous Virgin Manauag 
(Pangasenan). That unhappy man was the agent of the parish 
priest of Manauag. 

He (the friar) would not furnish the last necessary spiritual 
needs, and as to the confession and communion of the ill, he left 
it to the coadjutor who was not able to attend to so many. The 
friars compelled everybody, without exception, to kiss their hands on 
greeting them, and he who disobeyed would receive a slap, and they 
revenged themselves as far as they possibly could. As to the social 
relations, they treated the people of the town grossly, belittling those 
who dressed decently by saying that it was not proper for them so 
to do, as they should only wear the salocot and calapio (palm hat and 
rain coat) to follow carabaos and ploys; and they treated their 
coadjutors worse than slaves. 

Testimony of Headmen and Leading Residents 

The frairs had the heads of the Spanish government under their 
order. The latter were the cause of many vexations, and with their 
own hands chastised and beat alleged culprits, and whenever a 
Spanish authority did not second or conform to the wishes of the 
friars, all the orders contributed large sums of money to have him 
removed, and this is the true cause of the Fihpino revolution. 
The morality of the friars generally left much to be desired; it was. 
a cause for scandal among their parishioners. Their free life was sa 



286 The Question of Romanism 

notorious that nothing was hidden from their parishioners^ who had 
everything before their eyes on all occasions. They compelled all 
the spinsters to go up into the convent on Sundays and feast days, 
and there they exhorted them regarding matters which were not 
advisable, and, not satisfied with this, they advised them to confess 
frequently, and they relied upon this means to profane the house 
of God, and, if they did not secure their disordered ends, they sought 
means, even though it were calumny, to secure the deportation of the 
fathers of families, and if the women were married, their husbands, 
as happened to a former captain, Don Miguel Revollo, and others. 
To show how far their astuteness went, there still exists in the 
convent of this pueblo two secret stairways, the door being in the 
form of a wardrobe, which when opened formed means of escape — 
one communicating with the vault and leading from the choir of the 
church to the sacristy, and the other in the sleeping-room of the 
curate, which led to a store-house which is now used as the office 
of the local presidente. This was the idea of a friar to carry out 
his impure and disordered passions. It can be said that there were 
two curates of this pueblo who were so cruel and inhuman that even 
without any reason they verbally ill-treated whoever had the mis- 
fortune to have anything to do with them, not to say anything of 
their servants, sacristans, and singers, without respecting the sanctity 
of the place and of religious functions; whereof, by reason of our 
consciences as good Catholics, we cannot but protest under pain 
of threatening the demoralization and corruption of our holy religion. 
They abused all kinds of females without distinction of class or age, 
and when some of them became with child they gave them medicines 
to kill the foetus. 

Jose Templo 

Q. How much personal opportunity had you before 1896 to 
observe the relations existing between the friars and the people of 
their parishes in a religious, in a social, and in a political way? 

A. As regards the religious relations, the friar curates, if they 
had a coadjutor or coadjutors, did hardly anything in their parishes 
except to confess a few penitents outside of the Lenten season, if 
they were so disposed; the administering of the other sacraments, 
a great part of the penitents, and also of the preaching, being per- 
formed by the coadjutors. The practical acts of the friars with 
respect to religion were not responsive to their pious calling of mis- 
sionaries and teachers of the natives. They ought, rather, to be 
called the corrupters of youth. For this reason, in the administra- 
tion of the sacraments they exercised only the penitential, as in these 
they experienced delights and pleasures through their shameless 
and incredible solicitations. In Lenten time, which was the period 
when the country folk came in to confess, the parish friar would give 
strict orders to the scribes of the church to the end that in the dis- 
tribution or giving out of the certificates to the penitents among 



Church Lands in the Philippines 287 

himself and the coadjutors, they should give him the 3^oung unmar- 
ried country women and servant penitents, whom he obscenely 
solicited through words and manipulations in the confessional, 
which they always had cornered and buried in the drakest part of 
the church. Is a proof of this desired as clear as the light of midday? 
Here are the thousands of solicited females, of which I have some 
examples in my house, ready to depose if necessary in accordance 
with what is here denounced. Unfortunately the virtuous friars 
who sought the moral and material well-being of their parishioners 
did not last in the curacies. * ^ The image of the Holy Patron 
Saint Sebastian, martyr, was another element of inexhaustible in- 
dustry and immense profit to the friar curate. Inside the town and 
outside, or in the barrios, it was carried on a platform by a custodian, 
a canting fellow, going from house to house, and asking alms in the 
name of the image; alms consisting of money, according to the fol- 
lowing tariff: For leaving the image in a house from the morning 
till the evening, telling the rosary on its arrival and another rosary 
on its departure, two pesos ( dollars ). For staying in a house half an 
hour telling one rosary, half a peso. For remaining in a house a whole 
night, to go to bed, as they said, telhng the rosar}^ twice, two pesos. 
This perigrination of the image, or of the saint, as the generality of 
the people said, was continuous, having been converted from time 
immemorial into a modus vivendi of the friar, who had ordered the 
custodian to turn in every Sunday of the week a sum not less than 
twenty-eight pesos. 

A certain governor of the provinces, a participator in the in- 
fliction of fines, in bribes and other oppressions, arrived at the con- 
vent one day seeking shelter, as was his custom. The parish friar 
received him on the stairway, and after greeting him dryly, said: 
''My governor, you don't fit in here any more; there are twenty 
fathers here and there are no beds for governors." The poor gover- 
nor left, and sought shelter in the house of a resident whom he had 
just thrown into prison for an imaginary attempt at sedition. 

Q. What fees were actually collected by the parish priests for 
marriages, burials and christenings? 

A. During the Spanish rule the parish priest of this city 
charged : For each marriage, six pesos and fifty cents, be- 
sides the presents made by the wedded couple, consisting of chickens 
and hens; for burials, according to the following tariff; for each burial, 
with prayers, of an adult, if the latter were a pure native, three pe- 
sos fifty cents; for the burial of a Chinese mestizo, three pesos sevenly- 
five cents; for first-class interment of a child, with coffin and in a 
pantheon or niche, thirty-seven pesos and fifty cents ; if the deceased 
were the child of Chinese mestizos, a larger amount was charged; 
for a third-class interment of an adult, with coffin and in a niche, 
fifty-four pesos and thirty cents; for a second-class intermient of an 
adult, with coffin and niche, ninety pesos and thirty cents; for a 
first-class interment with coffin and niche of an adult, up to two 



288 The Question of Romanism 

hundred and twenty pesos was charged. It should be noted that 
for interments of Chinese mestizos of any kind, adults and children, 
a larger sum was charged than that designated in each scale for 
natives. These fees were arbitrary and very excessive, for the parish 
priest kept from the public the legitimate schedule of fees pub- 
lished by the worthy archbishop of Manila. Besides, the parish friar 
of this city, when any person died (and this was the most hateful 
act and the most worthy of public animadversion and of the ana- 
thema of all peoples) caused to be investigated, through his best 
familiar or sacristan, the amount of the estate for the deceased. Should 
the latter have been wealthy or well to do, he compelled (and no 
tears or sobs could stay him) the family thereof to have a funeral 
of the highest possible class, and never allowing to be of a lower 
class — with one prayer, for instance. "^ ^ The abuses, tryannies, 
and countless immoralities committed safely, synthetized in the 
facts recorded and in many others no doubt worse, of which the de- 
ponent has no knowledge, as they were committed elsewhere, and 
must have partaken of another character owing to, a diversity of 
conditions; and I say ''safely" because in the Philippines no one 
could call the friar to account for his acts. And if any governor al- 
lowed himself at any time to bridle the friars, his rashness cost him 
dearly, he being discharged from his office. 

The deportation of thousands of Filipinos to the distant 
islands in the south of the Archipelago, to the Marians, and even to 
the Spanish colonies in Africa, were in great part the work of the 
friars. As proof: A few of the residents of Villa, finding ourselves 
one night gathered in the convent, between 6 and 7 o'clock, carrying 
out against our will the tiresome custom of occasionally exhibiting 
ourselves to the friar to erase from his feverish imagination the evil 
preoccupation that he might perhaps have conceived against us, be- 
lieving us to be filibusters. Among the group was a cultured young 
man a short time before arrived from the Peninsula, qualified to be 
admitted as a licentiate in civil law, who had followed his law sudies 
partly in the University of Santo Tomas and partly in the Univer- 
sity of Madrid, having passed many of the years of his youth in the 
capital of Spain and in that of Valencia, and as the friar did not 
know him, and it being the first time that he had seen him — and the 
last — he asked him: ''And who art thou?" To which the youth 
replied: "I, Father, am one of ." "Of the branded?" in- 
quired the monk. "No, Father, I am a resident of the barrio of 
Mataasnalpa, at the command of your reverence." Two weeks 
had hardly passed when I learned, to the great sorrow of my soul, 
that the poor young man, who divided his time between books and 
chicken raising, was taken from his house by a couple of municipal 
guards, by order of the parish friar and taken to the capital of this 
province, where he was placed in the hands of the governor, who, 
not knowing what to do with him, transferred him to IManila. He, 
after suffering incredible miseries inherent to a long voyage, even- 



Church Lands in the Philippines 289 

tually landed in one of the Spanish colonies in Africa, where he died, 
wept by the Spanish governor of the colony because of his learning 
and fine traits of character and the services he had rendered in the 
dependencies of the government as an amanuensis. * ''' I 
have known many Dominican, Augustinian, Recollecto and Fran- 
ciscan friars; perhaps 200 of them, and having been in rather inti- 
mate relations with some of them, I can assert that the best of them 
were t3Tants, who found much pleasure in saying: ''The Filipino 
must be given bread with one hand and rattan beatings with the 
other. '^ In Spain, by merely cutting off a thousand heads, Don 
Carlos would reign, and consequently the kingdom of peace, of 
order, and of justice would prevail. 

I have known curate friars who were of exemplary conduct, 
highly virtuous, religious, and good Catholics. But I have also 
known many friars so immoral and cynical, that they were wont to 
say, confidentially, when they were intoxicated, that they had a 
great advantage over those who were not priests in the conquest of 
good-looking women, as they relied on the confessional, and through 
it they became apprised of facts which made easy the attack, as- 
sault, and taking of the stronghold. In 1850, when I was fifteen 
years of age, Don Jose Sanchez Guerrero, alcalde mayor of Zam- 
beles, began a war without truce against the friars of that province, 
and all of them, except one, were carried to Manila, not only because 
they had women and children, but also because of their scandalous 
life, without caring a whit whether the whole world were apprised 
of the fact that they had what they called their wife and progeny. 

Charges have been made against the friars that many of their 
number have caused the deportation of Filipinos, members of their 
parishes, and that in some instances they were guilty of physical 
cruelty. What, if anything, do you know on these subjects? 

A. The following Filipino prayer written by me long before 
I had any notice of the interrogatories to which I am replying, will 
answer the questions of deportation and cruelty by the friars: 

''M}' God and Master! Have compassion upon us, the Filipinos; 
protect us from the Dominicans, Augustinians, RecoUectos, and Fran- 
ciscans. By instigations of these friars thousands of Filipinos have 
been torn from their homes, some to eat the hard and black bread, 
or the Pinaua of deportation, and others to shed blood in streams at 
executions. They were conducted to the calabooses, and there they 
were suspended from a beam with a pile of rocks on their shoulders, 
and several others hanging from their feet and their hands. Sud- 
denly the cord b}^ which they were suspended was loosened, and 
they fell in a heap on the floor, where, if they were not killed, they 
suffered dislocations and fractures. Later they were lashed on the 
soles of the feet, on the calves, on the backside, on the shoulders, 
and on the stomach. Their fingers and toes and privates were 
squeezed and mangled with pincers. They were given electric 
shocks. They were given to drink vinegar or warm water with salt 



290 The Question of Romanism 

in excessive quantities, so that they might vomit whatever they 
had eaten, and which had not passed through the pylorus into the 
small intestine. Their feet were placed in the stocks, and they were 
compelled to lie on the ground without even a bad mat, the mos- 
quitos, cinch-bugs, fleas and other insects sucking their blood, and 
the rats, at times, coming in their mad race and biting, to render 
worse their sorry and afflicted situation. They were given nothing 
to eat or drink except from one afternoon to another, the unhappy 
imprisoned Filipinos thus experiencing the tortures of hunger and 
thirst. And after causing them to suffer other horrible tortures 
invented by the Inquisition of ominous memory, squalid, careworn, 
attenuated, hardly able to stand erect, many were taken to the field 
where they died by shooting, for such was the will of the friars, who 
every day asked for blood — Filipino blood — the blood of those who 
in this country stood out by reason of their knowledge, their up- 
rightness, or their wealth. Thou knowest, my God, that in 1872 
the Filipino fathers Don Mariano Gomez, Don Jose Burgos, and 
Don Jacinto Zamora died on the scaffold because they opposed the 
friars usurping the curacies of the priests, as in the end they did 
usurp them, because the friars were almost omnipotent at that time, 
and there was no human power to arrest their will. Neither are we 
ignorant, my God, that in 1897 there were shot to death on the field 
of Bagumbayan the Filipino priests Don Severrino Diaz, Don 
Gabriel Prieto, and Don Inocencio Herrera, because the two first 
named objected to the curate of Naga, a Franciscan friar, collect- 
ing some parochial fees belonging to the said Father Diaz, as curate 
of the cathedral of Nueva Cacaras. Thou also knowest, my Lord 
and God, that notwithstanding that Dr. Don Jose Rizal, the unfor- 
tunate Macario Valentin, and innumerable other Filipinos were 
wholly innocent, they also succumbed on the field of Bagumbayan, 
shot to death. Neither is it unknown to Thee, my God, that a mul- 
titude of Filipinos have remained marked forever as the result of 
blows and cruel treatment they have received, among them. General 
Lucban, who has a rib sprung, and will probably carry it through 
life. Inspire, Lord, the American authorities with the idea of mak- 
ing an examination and excavations in the Monastery of Santa 
Clara of Manila, for about fifteen years or more ago a nun went upon 
the roof of the said monastery and there loudly begged for help — a 
scandalous fact which many Manilaites can not but recall. Expel, 
Lord, expel from the Philippines the friars, before there is pow- 
dered glass in the rice we. eat and poison in the water we drink, and 
before Dr. Manuel Jerez Burgos, to whom an anonymous missive 
was addressed saying: ''Lara died today; thou shalt die tomorrow," 
shall be assassinated. Take, Lord, take from our sight the habits 
(style of dress ) of the friars, which recall to us days of movu-ning and 
affliction, days of prisons, deportations, tortures, and executions 
of beings who are dear to us, whose unhappy end still draws tears 
from our eyes and fills our hearts with anguish. Do more yet, my 



Church Lands in the PhiHppines 291 

Lord and God. dissolve, annihilate, destroy throughout the Avorld the 
monastic order whose by-laws constitute a woeful system which 
produces and necessarily must produce, men hypocritical, perverse, 
covetous and cruel oppressors of humanity, as is evidenced by his- 
tory and recently by the present war in China, occasioned by abuses, 
arbitrariness, and excesses of the friars. We supphcate and pray 
Thee, my God, that Thou cast out from the Philippines forever the 
friars that again are attempting to take possession of the curacies of 
the Philippines, to treat anew our priests as though they were their 
servants. Amen." 

Q. What is to be said of the morality of the native priests? 

A. The native priests are on the same footing as the friars. 
Were the Catholic priests allowed to marry, like the Protestant pastors, 
we should not have, as at present, spectacles by no means edifying. 

Q. What do you think of the establishment of schools in which 
opportunity would be given the ministers of any church to instruct 
the pupils in religion half an hour before the regular hour? Would 
this satisfy the Catholics of the islands in their desire to unite religion 
with education? 

A. As I am one of those who do not oppose the freedom of 
conscience, I find the idea of establishing schools in the manner indi- 
cated in the question is an excellent one, which is also advisable in 
order that there may be equality before the law. The Catholic is 
not compelled to become a Protestant, and why should-the Protestant 
be compelled to become a Catholic? \^Tiy should Catholicism alone 
be taught? It is clear that such a determination would not satisfy 
the Catholic of the islands, because everywhere the Catholic is 
headstrong, and never ceases preaching that liberalism is a sin, 
without seeing that he confounds religion with politics and that he 
thereby declares himself incompatible with liberty and progress, he 
finds himself in his element only where absolutism and the magister 
dixit reign. To my mind the said schools should be established 
without regard to the Catholics, for it is just that all should enjoy 
the same benefits of instruction in their respective religion, since 
all are to contribute to the popular and state burdens. 

Answers to the Interrogatories. (Translation) 

To the Honorable American Civil Commission: 

The undersigned, a resident of Nueva Cacaras, the capital of 
the province of Both Camarines, ex-clerk of the court of the first in- 
stance of the terminated government of Spain, ex-counselor of jus- 
tice under the Filipino government, now under the United States, 
proprietor of and speculator in foreign and domestic fruits and 
produce, having informed himself through the newspaper El Pro- 
greso, of the interrogatories relating to the social Philippine friar 
problem, formulated by the said illustrious corporation, believes in 
performing a patriotic duty by replying in the most categoric man- 



292 The Question of Romanism 

ner possible to each and all of the questions therein contained, and 
complies as follows: 

The morality of the friars in the pueblos of the Philippines was 
with very few exceptions, very scandalous, and reached the incredible 
in some pueblos of this province and Albay. The parish friar con- 
verted himself, up to a certain point, into an absolute lord, master 
of lives and property, and, if so willed, he made and unmade every- 
thing according to his fancy. 

Master of the will of the people, more through fear than out of 
love for him, he nominated town authorities who pleased him, which 
nomination resulted almost always in the greatest flatterer of all his 
parishioners, and it it plain that all weighty determinations dictated 
by the municipal authorities were not proper initiaves but those of 
his amours. Invested with this power, who would dare to resist any 
of his v/hims and those frailities of man of flesh and bone? If domi- 
nated by the temptation of an unholy love, neither the sacredness of 
the bridal-chamber nor the modesty of a virgin or widow detain 
him. Cases personally witnessed by the undersigned confirm the 
veracity of these assertions. A certain Fray (friar) Damaso Mar- 
tinez was a foreign vicar in the years 1870 to 1872 in the district of 
Lagonoy of this province, with residence in that of Goa. He was 
so despotic and wicked to the people of his pueblo, that when going 
to the house of a married woman he ordered the husband to leave 
the house in order to be able to speak alone with his wife, and in 
this way he managed to seduce many, although he did so only to 
those he knew to be ignorant. 

This vicar friar did not only commit those abuses on the igno- 
rant and uninstructed people, but I have to relate another case, of 
which a distinguished lady was the victim, who passed as and was, in 
fact, a very honest woman. It was the work of the machinations 
of a friar, violently enamored of her. It happened in the pueblo of 
Polangui, province of Albay, whose parish friar was the Fray Euse- 
bio Platero. The lady was the widow of a Spaniard, and belonged 
to one of the finest families of that town. She had a brother more 
enlightened than the friar, and who was opposed to the latter's de- 
sires. Being aware of the friar's evil intentions toward his sister, 
the widow, he forbade her any kind of relation with him, particu- 
larly his frequent visits. Aware of this the priest at once contrived 
to bring a false accusation of assassination against the brother, 
which caused the latter to be pursued by the civil guard and the 
court of the first instance, and thanks to his being able to furnish the 
proofs of his innocence in time, the blow did not reach him, but he 
could not escape from all the daily vexations which did not cease to 
pursue him. 

Strong in his resolution to conquer the widow, who from the be- 
ginning exhibited the greatest contempt for his amorous preten- 
sions, the friar did not delay to resort to the last resource of sowing 
a mortal hatred between the brother and sister, and, withdrawn in 



Church Lands in the Philippines 293 

this way from the influence of her brother, who saw himself obhged 
to threaten her with grave chastisements, she soon made common 
cause with the priest against her brother, and fell into the snare, 
bringing shame upon her family and occasioning, for that reason, the 
premature death of her brother. This ignoble action of the friar is 
very fresh in the memory of the people of Polangui (Albay). 

The friars, in their parishes as well as in the convents of the 
communities to which they belonged, devoted themselves more than 
anything else to acquire riches for their convents, and for this pur- 
pose they made use of all the means in their power in all the ranks of 
the administration. Under the mask of religion, they desired at all 
cost, to maintain ignorance among the common people, and the fana- 
ticism, fomenting in the country, had to keep silence like meek 
lambs. 

Little by little the people discovered these shameless acts, and 
on fixed occasions made manifestations of their complaints before 
the Spanish authorities, who, if they did not pay any attention, 
served only to strengthen more every time the friars' influence, who, 
on the other side, encouraged by impunity, they repaid the offense 
of the bold with a strong vengeance. If they were enlightened peo- 
ple they fell under the weight of the accusation of being Freemasons 
and freebooters, and were deported to some of the inhospitable 
Spanish possessions, or shot as traitors to the country by sentence 
of a court martial. The Filipino people knew that all this and the 
bad times they experienced in their pueblos under the Spanish rule 
were owing to the friars' intrigues and false reports, and therefore 
the people attacked them as their principal enemy. 

Through religious fanaticism the friars obtained from many a 
child or childless devotee, in the name of the Catholic church rich 
donations of money, jewelry, and valuable estates, but after re- 
ceiving same they transferred them to the convents of their orders, 
and it is probable that in this way the great wealth they possess in 
the country was accumulated in the course of time. All the world 
knows that the friar, upon entering his religious order, makes vow^s 
of poverty and can acquire nothing, neither for himself nor for his 
family or heirs. But once friar of a pueblo he believes himself en- 
titled to acquire all kinds of treasures, and dying he leaves every- 
thing to his order. 

Nine-tenths of the friar parish priests leave progeny in their 
pueblos and in each pueblo there exists a nucleus of families related 
to the friars, of good social position and favored by the latter, and 
these are the ones who sigh and ask for the return of their natural 
protectors. The latter, in order to endow and maintain them in 
position, have had to oppress the people with a thousand rapacities 
under pretext of religion, custom, and piety. Let the commission 
go to the pueblo of Dumangas ; there is Fray (friar ) Burillo with six 
children; in Passi, Fray Brabo, with 4; in Pototam, Fray Ambrinos, 
3; in Duenas, Fray Gallo, 1; in Dingle and Janiceay, Fray Llorente, 



294 The Question of Romanism 

7; in Oton, Fray Yloz (Diego), 8; Fra}' Joaquin Fernandez, 3; in 
Sara, Fray Pualino, 4; in Bugason, Fray Manuel Arencio, 6; in Dao 

(Antique), Fray Bamba, 8; in Guagua, Fray Brabo (Antonia), 3; 
in Lubao, Fray Munoz, 2; in Bataan, Fray Marcilla, 10; in Binondo 
and Pandacan, archbishop Payo, 4; and so on in the four bodies 

(religious orders ) which serve the parishes. As they take the vows 
at the age of sixteen, before they know what marriage is or what it is 
for, when they later go out into the world, they open their eyes and 
make up for lost time, having monev and opportunitv. 

^ FRANCISCO ALVAREZ 



APPENDIX III. 

Assassination of T^ resident Lincoln 

Traced to the door of Rome, by ex-priest, Rev. Charles Chiniquy 
in his "Fifty years in the Church of Rome.'' 

Before giving the extracts from Rev. Mr. Chiniquy's book, a 
few preliminaries may be interesting: After the assassination of 
President Lincoln, by J. Wilkes Booth, the following dispatches were 
sent out to the world: 

''Dispatches from the Provost-Marshal General, War Depart- 
ment, Provost-Marshal's General bureau, Washington, D. C, April 
15, 9:40 A. M., 1865. 
''To J. C. Derby, United States Dispatch Agent. 

The sad duty involves upon me to announce the assassination 
of the President at Ford's Theatre, by a pistol-shot from a person 
who entered his box for that purpose. The assassin escaped, but it 
is supposed that he has since been arrested. The President died 
at seven-thirty this morning. Vice-President Johnson has assumed 
the functions of President having been sworn in by the Chief Justice. 
, "About the same time an attempt was made by, it is believed, 
a different person, to assassinate Mr. Seward, but the murderer only 
succeeded in inflicting painful and severe wounds. 

"Mr. W. F. Seward was beaten over the head by a heavy wea- 
pon in the hands of the person who attacked his father, and is griev- 
ously hurt. His brother was also wounded by the dagger of the 
assassin, as was Mr. Hansell a messenger of the Department who was 
with the Secretary and the man nurse in attendance." (Secretary 
Seward was at the time confined to his bed from illness. ) 

"Washington, War Department, April 15, 1805. 

It is believed that the assassins of the President and Secretary 
Seward are attempting to escape to Canada. You will make a 



Assassination of President Lincoln 295 

careful and thorough examination of all persons attempting to cross 
from the United States, etc. 

Secretary of War. 
N. L. Jellers, Brevet Brigadier-General, acting Provost-Marshal 
General." 

'^War Department, April 20, 1865. 
Major-General John A. Dix, New York. 

The murderer of our late beloved President is still at large, 
$50,000 reward will be paid by this department for his apprehension, 
in addition to any reward offered by municipal authorities or State 
Executives. 

$25,000 reward" '^ * for apprehension of G. A. Atzerodt, 
sometimes called 'Port-Tobacco,' one of Booth's accomplices. 
$25,000 for apprehension of David C. Harold, another of Booth's 
accomplices." 

''Washington War Department, April 23. 
Major-General John A. Dix, New York. 

The Counties of Prince George, Charles and Mary's (Maryland ) 
have during the whole war been noted for hostility to the govern- 
ment, and their protection to blockade-runners, rebel spies and 
every species of public enemy; the murderers of the President har- 
bored there before the murder and Booth fled in that direction." etc. 

"Washington War Department, April 24. 
Major-General John A. Dix, New York. 

This Department has information that the President's murder 
was organized in Canada and approved in Richmond. 

One of the assassins who now is prisoner, and who attempted to 
kill Mr. Seward, is believed to be one of the St. Alban's raiders. 
Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War." 

"Washington War Department, April 27, 9:20. 
Major-General John A. Dix, New York. 

J. Wilkes Booth and Harold were chased from the swamps of 
St. Mary's County, Maryland, to Garrett's farm, near Port Royal, 
on the Rapahannock, by Colonel Baker's forces. 

The barn in which they took refuge was fired. Booth in 
making his escape, was shot through the head and killed, lingering 
about three hours, and Harold was captured." 

"Indictment of the Conspirators 

"The following is a copy of the charge and specification against 
David A. Harold, George A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Michael O'- 
Laughlin, John H. Surratt, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Mary 
E. Surratt and Samuel Mudd. 

First: for maliciously, unlawfully and traitorously and in aid 
of the existing armed rebellion against the United States of America 
on or before the sixth day of March, A. D., 1865, combining, con- 



296 The Question of Romanism 

federating and conspiring together with one John Surratt, John 
Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis, George N. Saunders, Beverly Tucker, 
Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Cla}^, George Har- 
per, George Young and others unknown, to kill and murder within 
the Military Department of Washington, and within the fortified and 
entrenched lines thereof, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United 
States, and Commander-in-chief of the army and navy thereof; 
Andrew Johnson, Vice-President of the U. S.; William Seward, 
Secretary of State of the U. S., and Ulysses S. Grant, Lieutenant- 
General of the Army of the U. S., then in command of the Armies of 
the U. S., under the direction of the said Abraham. Lincoln. 

''The conspirators aforesaid designing and intending by the 
killing and murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, 
Ulysses S. Grant and William H. Seward, to deprive the army and 
navy of the U. S. of a Constitutional Commander-in-Chief, and to 
deprive the armies of the U. S. of their lawful commander, and to 
prevent a lawful election of President and Vice-President of the L^. 
S. by the means aforesaid to aid and comfort the insurgents engaged 
in armed rebellion against the U. S. and thereby aid in the subversion 
and overthrow of the Constitution and laws of the U. S." etc., etc. 

J. Holt, Judge Advocate General." 

''Finding of the Court. 

Washington, July 5, 1865. 
War Department, Adjutant General's Office. 
To Major-General W. S. Hancock, V. S. Volunteers, Commanding 
Middle Military Division, Washington, D. C. 

Whereas by the Military Com^mission appointed in paragraph 

4, special. Orders 411, dated War Department: Adjutant-General's 
Office, May 6, 1865, and of which Major-General David Hunter, L^. 

5. Volunteers, is President, the following persons are tried and sen- 
tenced as herein stated: 

First, David E. Harold. 

Sentence, And the Commission therefore sentences him, the 
said David E. Harold, to be hanged by the neck until he is dead, at 
such time and place as the President of the U. S. shall direct. Two- 
thirds of the Commission concurring therein. 

Second, George A. Atzerodt, '-^ * to be hanged, etc. 

Third, Lewis Payne, "^ ^ to be hanged, etc. 

Fourth, Mary E. Surratt, '^ '^ to be hanged, etc." 

"Executive Mansion, July 5, 1865. 
The foregoing sentences ''^ ''' to be carried into execution by the 
proper Military Authority on the seventh day of July, 1865, between 
the hours of ten o'clock A. M., and two o'clock P. M. 

Andrew Johnson, President. 

"It is further ordered that the prisoners, Samuel Arnold, Samuel 
H. Mudd, Edward Spangler and Michael O'Laughlin be confined at 



Assassination of President Lincoln 297 

hard labor in the penitentiary at Albany, New York, during the 
period designed in their sentences, (which were for life. ) 

Andrew Johnson, President." 
It is said that all but two of these conspirators were Roman 
Catholic, and that J. Wilkes Booth had about his neck the scapular 

of indulgence, when killed. 

^i ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 

Twelve years of the twenty-five that Mr. Chiniquy served as 
priest, were devoted to the cause of temperance, and he was selected 
as standard bearer for French Canadian Romish colonists, who were 
to settle in Illinois. He began his task by selecting the site of what 
is now known as St. Anne, which remained his home. 

This is not what the Jesuit managers intended. They wanted 
the immigrants located in the cities where they could control their 
votes, and they resorted to their usual treacherous methods to dis- 
rupt the colony. 

When Mr. Chiniquy remonstrated the bishop did all in his power 
to remove him, but could not sustain any charges, although he was 
several times brought before the courts, each time defeating his 
enemies. 

Finally a charge was brought against him of a terrible character, 
and instead of trying the case at Kankakee, where he was known, a 
change of venu was brought to the court of Urbana, in Champaign 
county; Mr. Chiniquy, in the meantime, being held prisoner, under 
bail, by the sheriff. ''In this dark hour" a stranger advised him to 
secure the services of Abraham Lincoln, to whom he telegraphed, 
and the reply was: 

''Yes. I will defend your honor and your life at the next i\Iay 
term at Urbana." — Abraham Lincoln. 

Mr. Chiniquy says: 

"I spent six long days at Urbana, as a criminal, during which 
time, all that language can express of abuse and insult were heaped 
upon my head. >i< >i< I never heard anything like the elo- 
quence of Abraham Lincoln when he demolished the testimony of 
the two perjured priests who, with a dozen false witnesses had sworn 
against me. Through the mistake of having one Romanist on the 
jury, it disagreed and the case was set for trial again, the following 
October. 

Mr. Chiniquy's enemies, rich, powerful and high in position, 
scrupled at nothing. At the last trial the perjured evidence was so 
positive that the Chicago papers were telegraphed that he would be 
convicted. That telegram reached a witness of vital importance, who 
went at once to his rescue, with the result that the prosecution with- 
drew the case, acknowledging the innocence of Mr. Chiniquy. 

'"Dear Mr. Lincoln," said Mr. Chiniquy: "The joy which I 
should naturally feel for such a victory, is destroyed by the fear of 
what it may cost you. There were in the court room not less than 
ten or twelve Jesuits from Chicago and St. Louis, who came to hear 



298 The Question of Romanism 

my sentence of condemnation to the penitentiary. But it was on 
their heads that you brought* the thunders of heaven. Nothing can 
be compared to their rage against you, when you not only wrenched 
me from their cruel hands, but made the walls of the courthouse 
tremble under the awful and superhuman eloquence of your denun- 
ciations of their infamy, diabolical malice and total lack of Christian 
principle. What troubles my soul and draws my tears, is that I 
seem to read your sentence of death in their bloody eyes. 

" '1 know that the Jesuits never forget nor forgive,' he an- 
swered: 'But man must not care where or how he dies, provided 
that he dies at the post of honor and duty.' " 

Shortly after these occurrences, Mr. Chiniquy and his people 
withdrew from the Romish communion and for over thirty years re- 
mained, pastor and people, faithful to each other in the town of St. 
Anne, although during that time he was mobbed and attacked over 
thirty times. 

Mr. Chiniquy, in giving his evidence regarding the assassination 
of Mr. Lincoln, says: 

'' Having learned that there was a plot to assassinate the Pres- 
ident, I felt it my duty to go to Washington and tell him what I 
knew. 

'^ 'I am glad to meet you again", he said. 'You see that your 
friends, the Jesuits, have not yet killed me, but they would surely 
have done it when I passed through their devoted city, Baltimore, 
had I not defeated their plans by passing incognito, a few hours be- 
fore they expected me. We have the proof that the company which 
had been selected and organized to murder, me was led by a rabid 
Romanist, called Byrne, and there were two disguised priests among 
them to lead and encourage them. >!< * j g^w Mr. Morse, the 
learned inventor of telegraphy, a few days ago and he told me, when 
he was in Rome he discovered proofs of a most formidable conspiracy 
against this country and its institutions. It is evident that it is to 
the emissaries of the pope that we owe in a great part, the horrible 
eivil war which is threatening, not only to cover our country with 
blood but ruin. * '^ By the way, I want your views about 
something that is puzzling me: A number of Democratic papers 
have been sent to me lately, evidently edited by Romanists, pub- 
lishing that I was born a Romanist and baptized by a priest. They 
call me a renegade and apostate. At first I laughed at it, for no 
priest of Rome ever laid his hand upon my head. But the persis- 
tency of the Romish press to present this falsehood to their readers 
as a gospel truth, must have some meaning.' 

''I believe" answered Mr. Chiniquy "that it is not only your sen- 
tence of death, but their means of finding some fanatical Romanist to 
strike you down. They have invented this falsehood to brand you 
with the ignominious mark of apostacy. Do not forget that an apos- 
tate is an outcast from the church of Rome, who has no place in 
society and no right to live. 



Assassination of President Lincoln 299 

''The Jesuits want Romanists to believe that you are a monster; 
an open enemy of God and of his church, that you are an excommuni- 
cated man. For every apostate is, ipso facto excommunicated. I 
have brought to you the theology of one of the most learned and ap- 
proved of the Jesuits of his time, Bussambaum, who, with many 
others, says that the man who will kill you will do a good and holy 
work. More than this, here is a decree of Gregory VII. proclaiming 
that the killing of an apostate or a heretic, and an excommunicated 
man, as you are declared to be, it not murder; nay, it is a good. 
Christian action. This decree is incorporated in the canon law, 
which every priest must study, and which every Romanist must fol- 
low. My dear President, I repeat, what I have said at Urbana, in 
1850: My fear is that you will fall under the blows of a Jesuit as- 
sassin. Remember, it was because Coligny was a heretic, as you are, 
that he was brutally murdered on that awful St. Bartholomew night; 
that Henry IV. was stabbed by the Jesuit assassin, Revaillac, the 
fourth of May, 1610, for having given liberty of conscience to his 
people, and WilHam, the Taciturn, was shot dead by another Jesuit 
murderer, Girard, for having broken the yoke of the pope. The 
church of Rome is absolutely the same today, as then. She claims 
as her right and her duty to punish by death, any heretic who is in 
her way as an obstacle to her designs. The unanimity with which 
the Catholic hierarchy of the United States is on the side of the rebels 
is an incontrovertable evidence that Rome wants to destroy this 
Republic, and as you are, by your personal virtues, your popularity, 
your love for liberty, and your position, the greatest obstacle to their 
diabolical scheme, their hatred is concentrated upon you; you are 
the daily object of their malediction; it is at your breast they will 
direct their blows. My blood chills in my veins when I contemplate 
the day, when Rome will add to her other iniquities, the murder 
of Abraham Lincoln. 

''The President was perfectly calm. He read the lines of Bus- 
sanbaum which I had marked, and returning the volume, said: 

" 'I can only repeat what I said at Urbana: Man must not care 
when or where he dies, provided he dies at the post of honor and 
duty. But, I may add today that I have a presentiment that God 
will call me to him through the hands of an assassin. Let His will, 
not mine, be done. I am very grateful to you for your warning 
words. I know they are not imaginary dangers. If I was fighting 
against a Protestant South, as a nation, there would be no danger of 
assassination. The nations that read the Bible fight bravely on the 
battlefields; they do not assassinate their enemies. The pope and 
the Jesuits, with their infernal Inquisition, are the only organized 
power in the world that has recourse to the dagger of the assassin to 
murder those whom they cannot convince with their arguments or 
conquer with the sword. I feel that it is not against the Ameri- 
cans, of the South alone I am fighting, it is more against the pope at 
Rome and his perfidious Jesuits with their blind and blood-thirsty 



300 The Question of Romanism 

slaves. So long as they hope to conquer the North, they will spare 
me, but when we rout their armies, take their cities and force them 
to submit; then, it is my impression that the Jesuits who are the 
principal rulers of the South, will do as they have invariably done 
in the past. The dagger or the pistol of one of their adepts will do 
what the strong hands of the warriors could not achieve. 

'' 'This war seems nothing but a political affair to those who do 
not see, as I do,- the secret springs of the terrible drama, but it is 
more a religious than a civil war. It is Rome that wants to rule and 
degrade the North as she has ruled and degraded the South, from 
the day of its discovery. There are only a few of the Southern 
leaders who are not more or less under the influence of the Jesuits 
through their wives, family relations and friends. Several mem- 
bers of the family of Jeff Davis belong to the church of Rome. 
Even Protestant ministers are under the influence of the Jesuits 
without suspecting it, themselves. To keep her ascendency in 
the North as she does in the South, Rome is doing here what she has 
done in Mexico, and in all the South American Republics; she is 
paralyzing, by a civil war, the arms of the soldiers of liberty. She 
divides our nation in order to weaken, subdue and rule it. 

" 'We have some brave and reliable Romish officers and soldiers 
in our armies, but they form an insignificant minority when com- 
pared with the traitors against whom we have to guard day and 
night. The fact is that the immense majority of the Romish bishops 
priests and laymen are rebels in heart when they cannot be in fact; 
with very few exceptions they are publicly in favor of slavery. I 
can understand now why the patriots of France, who determined to 
see the colors of liberty floating over their great and beautiful coun- 
try, were forced to hang or shoot almost all the priests and monks 
as the irreconcilable enemies of liberty. The fact is evident, 
that with rare exceptions, every priest and every true Romanist is a 
determined enemy of liberty. Their extermination in France was 
one of those terrible necessities which no human wisdom could avoid; 
it looks to me now as an order from heaven to save France. May 
God grant that the terrible necessity be never felt in the United 
States! But if the American people could learn of the fierce hatred 
of the generality of the priests against our institutions, our schools, 
our most sacred rights and our so dearly bought liberties, they would 
drive them away from among us or they would shoot them as trai- 
tors. The history of the past thousand years tells us, where the 
church of Rome is not a dagger to pierce the bosom of a nation, she 
is a stone to her neck and a ball to her feet, to paralyze and prevent 
her advance in the ways of civilization, science, intelligence, happi- 
ness and liberty. 

'' 'We owe it to popery that we now see our land reddened with 
the blood of her noblest sons. Though there were great differences 
of opinion between the South and the North on the question of sla- 
very, neither Jeff Davis nor any of the leading men of the Confeder- 



Assassination of President Lincoln 301 

acy would have dared to attack the North had they not reUed on 
the promises of the Jesuits, that under the mask of democracy, the 
money and the arms of Romanists, even the arms of France, were 
at their disposal.' 

"In speaking of the letter of Pope Pius IX. to Jeff Davis, the 
President said: 

" 'It is the most perfidious act which could occur under the cir- 
cumstances. You are perfectly correct when you say it was to de- 
tach the Romanists who had enrolled themselves in our armies. 
Since the publication of that letter a great many of them have de- 
serted their banners and turned traitors; very few, comparatively, 
have remained true to their oath of fidelity. It is, however, very 
lucky that one of those few, Sheridan, is worth a whole army by his 
ability, his patriotism and his heroic courage. 

'' 'From the beginning of our Civil War there has been, not a 
secret, but a public alliance between the pope of Rome and Jeff 
Davis. The pope and his Jesuits have advised, supported and 
directed him on the land, from the first gun fired at Fort Sumter 
by the rabid Romanist, Beauregard. They are helping him on the 
sea by guiding and supporting the other rabid Roman pirate, Semmes 
on the ocean. The pope has thrown off his mask and shown him- 
self the public partisan and the protector of the rebellion by taking 
Jeff Davis by the hand and impudently recognizing the Southern 
States as a legitimate government. I have the proof in hand that 
Bishop Hughes, whom I sent to Rome, that he might induce the 
pope to urge the Romanists of the North to be true to their oath of 
allegiance and whom I publicly thanked, under the impression that 
he had acted according to the promise he had given me, is the very 
man who advised the pope to recognize the legitimacy of the Southern 
Republic, and put the whole weight of his tiara in the balance against 
us in favor of our enemies. 

" 'Till lately, I was in favor of the unlimited liberty of con- 
science, as our Constitution gives to the Romanists but now it seems 
to me that sooner or later the people will be forced to put a restric- 
tion to that clause tow^ards the papists. Is it not an act of folly to 
give absolute liberty to a set of men who are publicly sworn to cut 
our throats at the first opportunity? Is it right to give the privilege 
of citizenship to men who are sworn and public enemies of our Con- 
stitution, our laws, our liberties and our lives? 

" 'The very moment that popery assumed the right of life and 
death, of a citizen of France, Spain, Germany, England or the United 
States, it assumed to be the despotic government of these nations. 
Those States then committed a suicidal act by allowing popery to 
put a foot on their territory with the privilege of citizenship. The 
power of life and death is the supreme power; and two supreme 
powers cannot exist on the same territory without anarchy, riots, and 
bloodshed. When popery gives up the power of life and death, 
which it proclaims as its own divine power in all its theological books 



302 • The Question of Romanism 

and canon laws, then alone should it be tolerated, and receive the 
privilege of citizenship. 

'' 'Is it not an absurdity to give to man a thing which he is 
sworn to hate, curse and destroy, and does not the church of Rome 
hate, curse and destroy liberty of conscience whenever she can do 
it safely? 

'^ 'T am for liberty of conscience in its noblest, broadest, highest 
sense but I cannot give liberty of conscience to the pope and his fol- 
lowers, so long as they tell me through all their councils, theologians and 
canon laws that their conscience orders them to burn m> wife, 
strangle my children and cut mv throat when they find the oppor- 
tunity. 

" 'This does not seem to be understood by the people today, 
but sooner or later the light of common sense will make it clear to 
everyone that no liberty of conscience can be granted to men who are 
sworn to obey a pope who pretends to have the right to put to death 
those who differ from him in religion. 

" 'You are not the only one to warn me against, the dangers of 
assassination. My embassadors in Italy, France and England, as 
well as Professor Morse, have many times warned me against the 
plots of the murderers whom they have detected in those different 
countries. I see no other safeguard against these murderers, 
but to be always ready to die.'" 

After quotingfrom Abbott's History of the Civil War, the graphic 
account of the scenes following the assassination of President 
Lincoln; and rehearsing the facts connected with the Surratt house 
in Washington, where the assassination was planned, Mr. Chiniquy 
continues : 

"After twenty years of constant and most difficult research, I 
come fearlessly before the American people to say and prove that 
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by the priests and Jesuits of 
Rome. 

"The great, the fatal mistake of the American government in 
the prosecution of the assassins of President Lincoln was to con- 
stantly keep out of sight the religious element of that terrible drama. 
Nothing would have been easier than to find the proof of the com- 
plicity of the priests, who were not only coming every da}' and every 
week, but were living in the den of murderers. But this was care- 
fully avoided from the beginning to the end of the trial. When, 
not long after the execution of the murderers, I went incognito to 
Washington to begin my investigation, I was not a little surprised 
to find that not a single government man to whom I addressed my- 
self, would consent to talk on the subject, until I gave my word of 
honor that their names should not be mentioned in connection with 
my investigation. I saw with profound distress that the influence 
of Rome was almost supreme in Washington. 

"Some men ventured to say: 'We had not the least doubt that 
the Jesuits were at the bottom of that great iniquity. Had it been 



Assassination of President Lincoln 303 

in days of peace we know that with a httle more pressure on the 
witnesses, many priests would have been compromised, for Mrs. 
Surratt's house was their common rendezvous; it is even probable 
that several of them might Jiave been hanged.' 

''If any doubt the complicity of the Jesuits in the murder 
of Abraham Lincoln, let them give a moment's attention to the fol- 
lowing facts and their doubt must be forever removed. It is from 
the very Jesuit accomplice's lips that I take my sworn testimonies. 

''It is evident that a very elaborate plan of escape had been pre- 
pared by the priests of Rome to save the lives of the assassins and 
the conspirators. Let us fix our eyes on John Surratt, who was in 
Washington on the 14th of April helping Booth in the preparations 
of the assassination. Who will press him on their bosom, put their 
mantles on his shoulders to conceal him from the just vengeance of 
human and divine laws? The priest, Charles Boucher (Trial of 
John Surratt, vol, ii, page 904-912), swears, that only a few days 
after the murder, John Surratt was sent to him by Father Lapierre, 
of Montreal, that he kept him concealed in his parsonage of St. 
Liboire, then he took him back secretly to Father Lapierre, who 
kept him secreted in his own father's house, under the very shadow 
of the palace of the bishop of Montreal. He swears (page 905-914) 
that Father Lapierre visited him (Surratt) often, when secreted 
at St. Liboire, and that he, (Father Boucher) visited him at least 
twice a week, from" the end of July until September, when concealed 
in Father Lapierre's house in Montreal. 

"The same Father Charles Boucher swears that he accompanied 
John Surratt in a carriage, in company with Father Lapierre to the 
steamer 'Montreal' when starting for Quebec. That Father La- 
pierre kept him (John Surratt )under lock during the voyage from 
Montreal to Quebec, and that he accompanied him disguised from 
the Montreal steamer to the ocean steamer 'Peruvian.' (Trial of 
Surratt, page 910.) 

"The doctor of the steamer 'Peruvian', L. I. A. McMilhan, 
swears (volume i, page 460) that Father Lapierre intoduced him 
to John Surratt, under the false name of McCarty, whom he was 
keeping locked in his stateroom, and whom he conducted disguised 
to the ocean steamer 'Peruvian', and with whom he remained till 
he left Quebec for Europe, the 15th of September, 1865 

"Who is Father Lapierre who takes such tender, paternal care 
of Surratt? He is no less a person than the canon of Bishop Bour- 
get, of Montreal. He lives with the bishop, eats at his table, assists 
him with his council, and he has to receive his advice in every step 
of life. According to the laws of Rome, the canons are to the bishop 
what the arms are to the body. 

"Now, I ask: Is it not evident that the bishops and priests at 
Washington have trusted this murderer to the tender care of the 
bishops and priests of Montreal, that they might conceal, feed, and 
protect him for nearly six months, under the very shadow of the 



304 The Question of Romanism 

bishop's palace? Would they have done that if they were not his 
accomplices? Why did they so continually remain with him, day 
and night, if they were not in fear that he might compromise them 
b}'' an indiscreet word? Why do we see those priests (I ought to 
say ambassadors of the pope ) alone in the carriage which takes that 
great culprit from his house of concealment to the steamer? Why 
do they keep him there under lock till they transfer him, under a 
disguised name, to the ocean steamer Peruvian? Why such tender 
sympathies for that stranger? Why go through such trouble and 
expense for that young American among the bishops and priests of 
Canada? There is only one answer. He was one of their tools, one 
of their selected men to strike the great Republic of equality and 
liberty to the heart. For more than six months before the murder 
the priests had lodged, eaten with, conversed, and slept under the same 
roof with him in Washington. They had trained him to his deed of 
blood, by promising him protection on earth and a crown of glory in 
heaven, if he would only be true to their designs to the end, and he 
had been true to the end. 

"It was many centuries since the implacable enemies of the 
rights and liberties of men had struck such a giant foe; their joy was 
as great as their victory was complete. 

''Where will those bishops and priests of Canada send John 
Surratt when they find it impossible to conceal him any longer from 
the thousands of detectives of the United States? ' Who will conceal, 
feed, lodge and protect him after the priests of Canada have pressed 
his hand for the last time on board of the Peruvian? 

"Who can suppose that ony one but the pope, himself, and his 
Jesuits will protect the murderer of Abraham Lincoln, in Europe? 

"If you want to see him after he crossed the ocean, go to Vitry, 
at the door of Rome, and there you will find him enrolled under the 
banner of the pope in the ninth company of Pope Pius' Zouaves, 
under the false name of Watson. (Trial of John Surratt, vol. i, 
page 492. ) Of course the pope was forced to withdraw his protec- 
tion over him, after the Government of the United States had found 
him there, and he was brought back to Washington to be tried. 

"Those who have read the two volumes of the trial of John Sur- 
ratt know that never more evident proofs of guilt were brought 
against a murderer than in that case but the Romish jurymen had 
read the theology of St. Thomas, a book which the pope had ordered 
to be taught in every college, academy and university of Rome. They 
had learned that it 'was the duty of Roman Catholics to exterminate 
all heretics.' St. Thomas' Theology Vol. IV page 90. 

"Those jurymen were told by their father confessors that the 
most holy father Pope Gregory VII. had solemnly and infallibly 
declared that 'the killing of a heretic was not murder.' Fiire 
Canico. 

Abraham Lincoln died at the hands of Romanists and in the 
book at Washington where over one thousand organizations and 



Assassination of President Lincoln 305 

companies sent resolutions of condolence and sympathy and ex- 
pressions of horror at this awful deed not one single resolution from 
any Catholic body in the world is found upon those pages. 

The Church of Rome and Liberty of Conscience 
Treason and Murder Endorsed; The Decision of an Infallible Council. 

The following communication from the Illinois bar was pub- 
lished in the Kankakee Times: 

''In one of your late issues you told your readers that the Rev. 
Mr. Chiniquy had gained the long and formidable suit instituted by 
the Romish Bishop to dispossess him and his people of their church 
property. But you have not given any particulars about the start- 
ling revelations the Bishop had to make before the court in reference 
to the still existing laws against those whom they call heretics. 
Nothing is more important for every one (particularly Protestants ) 
to know precisely what these laws are. As I was present when the 
Romish Bishop Foley of Chicago was ordered to read these laws in 
Latin and translate them in English I have kept a correct copy of 
them. 

''TheRev. Mr. Chiniquy presented the works of St. Thomas and 
St. Liguori to the Bishop requesting him under oath to say if these 
works were not among the highest theological authorities in the 
church of Rome all over the world. After long and serious opposi- 
tion on the part of the Bishop to answer, the court having said he 
(the Bishop ) was bound to answer, the Bishop confessed that these 
books were looked upon as among the highest authorities, and that 
they are taught and learned in all colleges and universities of the 
church of Rome as standard works. 

''Then the Bishop was requested to read and translate into Eng- 
lish the fundamental principles of actions against heretics as ex- 
plained by St. Thomas and St. Liguori: 

"1. An excommunicated man is deprived of all civil commu- 
nication with the faithful in such a Avay that if he is not tolerated 
they can have no communication with him as it is in the following 
verse: 'It is forbidden to kiss him, pray with him, salute him, eat 
or do business with him.' St. Liguori vol. 9 page 162. 

"2. 'Though heretics must not be tolerated because they de- 
serve it we must bear with them till by a second admonition they 
may be brought back to the faith of the church. But those who 
after a second admonition, remain obstinate in their errors, must 
not only be excommunicated, but they must be delivered to the se- 
cular power to be exterminated.' 

"3. 'Though the heretics w^ho repent must always be accepted 
to penance as often as they have fallen, they must not in consequence 
of that always be permitted to enjoy the benefits of this life. When 
they fall again they are permitted to repent — but the sentence of 
death must not be removed.' St. Thomas, vol. 4, page 94. 

"4. 'When a man is excommunicated for his apostacy, it fol- 



306 The Question of Romanism 

lows from that very fact that all who are his subjects are released 
from the oath of allegiance by which they are bound to obe}' him.' 
St. Thomas, vol. 4. page 94 

'^The next document of the church of Rome brought before the 
court was the proceedings of the Council of liateran, A. D. 1215, as 
follows: 

'^'We excommunicate and anathematize every heresy that ex- 
alts itself against the Holy Orthodox and Catholic faith, condemning 
all heretics, by whatever name they may be known — for though 
their faces differ they are. tied together by their tails. Such as are 
condemned are to be delivered over to the existing secular powers, 
to receive due punishment. If laymen, their goods must be confis- 
cated. If priests, they shall be degraded from their respective 
orders, and their property applied to use of the church in which they 
officiated. Secular powers of all ranks and degrees are to be warned, 
induced, and if necessary, compelled by ecclesiastical censure to 
swear that they will exert themselves to extirpate all heretics de- 
nounced by the church, who shall be found in their territories. And 
whenever any person shall assume government, "vChether it be spirit- 
ual or temporal, he shall be bound to abide by this decree.' 

" 'If any temporal lord, after having been admonished and re- 
quired by the church, shall neglect to clear his territory of heretical 
depravity, the Metropolitan and Bishop of the province shall unite 
in excommunicating him. Should he remain contumacious a whole . 
year, the fact shall be signified to the Supreme Pontiff, who will de- 
clare his vassels released from their allegiance from that time, and 
will bestow his territory on Catholics, on condition of his extermina- 
ting the heretics, and preserving the said territory in the faith,' 

''^Catholics who shall assume the cross for the extermination of 
heretics (Protestants ), shall enjoy the same indulgences and be pro- 
tected by the same privileges as those who go to the help of the Hoh' 
Land.' (Which means forgiveness of all sins committed in the 
past and in the future). 'We decree further, that all Avho may 
have dealings with heretics, and especially receive, defend and en- 
courage them, shall be excommunicated. He shall not be eligible 
to any public office. He shall neither have power to bequeath his 
property by will, or to succeed to any inheritance. He shall not 
bring any action against any person but any one can bring an action 
against him. Should he be a judge his decision shall have no force, 
nor shall any cause be brought before him. Should he be an advo- 
cate, he shall not be allowed to plead. Should he be a lawyer, no in- 
strument made by him shall be held valid, but shall be condemned, 
with the author.' 

''The Roman Catholic Bishop Foley swore that these laws had 
never been repealed, and that they were still the laws of his church. 
He had to swear that, every year, he was bound under pain of eternal 
damnation, to say in the presence of God and to read in his Brevi- 
ary that 'God himself had inspired' what St. Thomas had 



Assassinatidn of President Lincoln 307 

written about the manner in which heretics shall be treated by 
Romanists. 

''Romanists areas interested as Protestants in knowing w^hat the 
Roman Bishops and Priests teach on the subject of hberty of con- 
science and religious toleration. Here w^e have the exact truth, 
and coming from such high Roman authority that there is no room 
left for any doubt. 

January 10, 1871. Stephen R. Moore, Attorney." 

The following table of enlistments and deserters during the war 
of 1861, which was published in the Chicago Inter Ocean and Neic 
York Sun, are profoundly significant and throw a flood of light upon 
the character of Rome's patroitism, and her devotion to our coun- 
try in the time of need. Most of the desertions took place after the 
writing of Pius IX's letter to President Davis. 

Enlistments 

Native Americans .... 1,645,000 or 75.48 per cent. 

Germans 180,807 '' 8.77 

Irish '. 144,221 '' 7.14 

British Americans 90,040 . '' 2.67 

English 45,500 '' 2.25 

All others 48,410 '' 3.76 

Total 2,218,200 

Deserters 
White troops, regular 16,395 

White troops, volunteers 170,216 
Colored 12,494 

Total.... 199,045 

Percentage of Desertion by Different Nationalities 

Irish 75 per cent. 

Americans . . 5 " '' 

Germans 10 ^' '^ 

All others 7 " 

At the time of the war of the United States with Mexico, in 
1847, history records: 

''On the 20th of August the battles of Contreras and Cherubusco 
were fought. At the latter place the principal point of attack was a 
fortified convent, and the American army lost 1,000 men in killed and 
wounded by the obstinate resistance. This was caused by the pre- 
sence of more than two hundred deserters from the American army, 
composed mostly of Romish Irish, who had been persuaded to desert at 
the instigation of the Mexican priests. Fifty of these men were after- 
ward captured and hanged, the drop of the gallows falling just as the 
American flag went up on the castle of Chapultepec," in the city of 
Mexico. 



OCT 3 1908 



M qi^ 



